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Banned
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Do the following news reports influence any of the posters here who unquestioningly believe the Bush administration's declaration of a "War on Terror", against "evil doers" who
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....hate what we see right here in this chamber -- a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms -- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0010920-8.html
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.....to consider the following questions:
If we really were in the middle of the fifth year of <b>fighting Mr. Bush's "war on terror", in earnest, against a "real" enemy</b> that actually was a formidable enough threat to justify the expense measured in American blood and treasure and the "bluster" that comes from the mouths of Bush, Cheney, et al, would I be able to ask the following questions and post the following observations.....would I, ....really??
I doubt it...but you don't...what would it take....for you to doubt it...to stop repeating the Foxnews and Bush/Cheney/Rove phrases, as you seem to...in unison.
No more talk of "they're evil".....or the "homicide bomber" "Foxism".
Is it not "odd" the the "number 1" named conspirator, Brent Wilkes, who bribed Randy Cunningham...paid him at least $636,000, is still walking around, unindicted? Odder still that Wilkes is the best friend of....until recently, an undercover CIA agent of 22 years, who is "number 3", at CIA? And even odder that the Union Tribune in San Diego just reported that
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......After Foggo joined the CIA in 1982, <b>Wilkes often visited him on Foggo's overseas assignments.</b> Even before the CIA removed Foggo's undercover status last year, Wilkes and Foggo boasted to acquaintances about Foggo's secretive work.........
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http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/p...9-1n1duke.html
Cunningham defense assailed in court filing
By Onell R. Soto
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
March 1, 2006
.....“I convinced myself that I wasn't selling my good offices because I have always believed in the value of the programs that I supported.”
Prosecutors Sanjay Bhandari, Jason Forge and Phillip Halpern said the facts contradict Cunningham's position.
They said Cunningham rejected concerns and objections raised by government officials and “bullied and hectored” them over red flags they raised about the legitimacy of the programs.
“At every stage of the funding process Cunningham set aside the judgment of (Department of Defense) officials about what was in the best interests of our country, in favor of what was in the best interests of his co-conspirators,” they said.
“To fund one initiative usually means cutting funding for another. Thus Cunningham lobbied to take funds away from other programs to ensure more money for his co-conspirators.” ......
....Included in the prosecutors' documents are e-mails by members of Cunningham's Washington staff, testimony by Pentagon officials and a letter written on Cunningham's congressional stationery – and under Cunningham's signature – by Wade. <h3>Also included is a script Wilkes gave the legislator on how to talk a skeptical Pentagon official into moving funds into his company's programs</h3>.....
...In 2004, shortly after Cunningham bought his Rancho Santa Fe mansion with proceeds from the sale of the Del Mar-area house, he asked Wilkes for $525,000 to pay off one of the mortgages.
Wilkes agreed, but asked for a $6 million contract, which he got over the objections of a Pentagon contracting officer.
The off-the-shelf computer equipment provided in that contract cost Wilkes $1.5 million to purchase, prosecutors said, netting an exorbitant profit.
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Is it "odd" that, if not for a newspaper reporter in San Diego, who "broke" the story that Randy Cunningham was taking massive bribes to sell his influence on Pentagon procurement decisions, to Wilkes and his protege, the now guilty Mitchell Wade, it would still be "business as usual"....Cunningham would still be in congress....pressuring the Pentagon to buy things that it didn't need to defend our country, in exchange for more cash from Wilkes and Wade.
Isn't it odd that the chairman Jerry Lewis of the congressional Defense Appropriations committee, even now avoids launching a formal inquiry into the damage to our defense....in wartime"... that Randy Cunningham actaully cost, or to find if other members of congress were also accepting bribes?
Isn't it odd that the White House <a href="http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000058.php">refuses to disclose</a> just what it paid Mitchell Wade's company...with the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/27/AR2005062701856.html">people's money</a>. for? Or....why Tom Delay or his pastor and former chief of staff, Ed Buckham, won't disclose what influence Brent Wilkes bought with the more than $500,000 that Wilkes paid to Buckham's ASG lobbying entity, which employed Delay's wife, Christine, to not perform a "no show" job.
Did congressman Bob Ney act "oddly", when he entered praise for Brent Wilkes in the congressional record, oddly reminiscent of a similar action that he performed on behalf of convicted lobbyists Abramoff and Michael Scanlon?
Isn't it odd that two scandals, "Abramoff" and "Cunningham" can involve so many government officials and so much money, with a commonality that much of the money enriched members iof the ruling politcal party and their election campaigns, but almost nobody here talks about them? Is it just easier to chat about a vague "war on terror" that does not change the behavior of those charged by the American people to manage it as quickly, efficiently, and as inexpensively, and...of course,
<b>AS OPENLY</b> as possible, with more serious enforcement of all laws, and with the stiffest possible penalties for those who break the law and weaken our security or are "war profiteers"? Isn't actually undermining the "war effort", a crime that deserves to be examined, discussed, and railed against, more vigoroulsy with the attention and vitriol directed against those who merely ask questions like the ones I am asking, or engage in peaceful protest and dissent as they lawfully conduct themselves as per past constitutionally guaranteed precedent?
Why, then the silence, the acceptance, the lack of curious comment, the lack of outrage, the blind, lockstep, recitation of conservative republican official talking points? Odder still, when we observe that the "support" for failure, duplicity, and by intentional negelect....open, unchallenged and uninvestigated corruption committed by key intelligence, defense, and congressional officials, duing wartime, and at the expense of all of us, even those who once called themselves "small government, "fiscal conservatives"!
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...dpage%E2%80%9C
CIA's Goss Names Undercover Officer To No. 3 Position
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 5, 2004; Page A02
CIA Director Porter J. Goss has selected a 22-year undercover
logistics officer nicknamed "Dusty" as executive director, the
third-ranking position at the agency.
<b>A public announcement of the choice is being delayed until his name
can be "cleared" and made public,</b> a senior administration official
said yesterday. "He is undercover at this time but will become public
fairly soon," the official said. Because Dusty has had five overseas
tours in undercover roles, the agency must "roll back his name" to
ensure that those holding embassy positions he once occupied are no
longer agency personnel, a former CIA official said.
The executive director manages the day-to-day administrative
activities of the $5 billion agency, including personnel and
budgeting matters, while the director and deputy director focus on
intelligence and clandestine operations.
Described as a logistician, Dusty has served at home and abroad,
including work for the counterterrorism center, the directorate of
science and technology, and the administrative directorate, officials
said. Several retired and active agency officials noted that although
he had run offices overseas, Dusty had no experience managing an
operation as big as the CIA.
Three retired officials noted that <b>Dusty had maintained a close
relationship in recent years with several Republican staff members of
the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence whom Goss, the
panel's former chairman, has brought to the agency as his top
assistants.</b>
Dusty is also a critic of a controversial new pay-for-performance
compensation reform plan that was put together by A.B. "Buzzy"
Krongard, who served as executive director under former CIA director
George J. Tenet.........
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<b>Odd that Foggo's identity was in a classified status as recently as earlier this year, but Wilkes was able to "go visit him" during his overseas assignments? Wouldn't it be more likely that Wilkes would not even know where in the world Foggo was, if his identity and his missions were classified?
Indeed...as recently as three months ago, this news report describes the CIA website's description of Foggo's "status:
</b>
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http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cf...dcn=todaysnews
DAILY BRIEFING
December 4, 2005
.....Contracting probe could extend to CIA
One current and two retired senior CIA officials told Government Executive that (as noted last week by reporter Laura Rozen in The American Prospect's TAPPED blog) the relationship of Wilkes and <b>Foggo--who the CIA's Web site declares is "under cover and cannot be named at this time,"</b> even though he is pictured and identified on a federal charity web page--has been a subject of increasing concern by some at Langley.
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http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/p...-1n4foggo.html
No. 3 CIA official investigated on ties to Wilkes
By Dean Calbreath
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
March 4, 2006
The CIA said yesterday it is investigating the connection between the agency's No. 3 official and a co-conspirator in the bribery case of former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham.
The CIA's executive director, Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, is a lifelong friend of Poway defense contractor Brent Wilkes. Federal prosecutors say Wilkes is the unindicted co-conspirator who, according to court documents, gave Cunningham $630,000 in bribes in exchange for federal contracts.
....Keith Ashdown, who monitors government contracts at the nonpartisan Taxpayers for Common Sense, said the investigation is overdue.
“One guy controls acquisition budgets. The other guy abuses acquisition budgets,” Ashdown said. “It's as close to a perfect storm as you can get.”
Because the CIA is funded through the so-called “black budget” – which is shielded from public scrutiny – it is hard to know how much business Wilkes is doing with the agency.
But CIA employees, business associates of Wilkes and former employees of his flagship company, ADCS Inc., have told The San Diego Union-Tribune that Wilkes has several CIA contracts, ranging from providing CIA agents with bottled water and first-aid kits to performing unspecified work in Iraq.
Most of the work, the sources say, was handled by Archer Logistics, a Wilkes company that shares office space in Chantilly, Va., with Wilkes' two-person lobbying firm, Group W Advisors. .....
<b>.....After Foggo joined the CIA in 1982, Wilkes often visited him on Foggo's overseas assignments. Even before the CIA removed Foggo's undercover status last year, Wilkes and Foggo boasted to acquaintances about Foggo's secretive work.</b>
At ADCS corporate headquarters, Wilkes set aside an office next to his executive suite where Foggo could work when he leaves the CIA, according to several former ADCS employees and business associates.
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http://www.sdcitybeat.com/article.php?id=3834
BRINGING DOWN DUKE
Meet the man who ended Cunningham’s career
by Daniel Strumpf
Shivering on a dark street in Islamabad, Pakistan, Marcus Stern tells
his story via a satellite phone with a patchy connection. The
52-year-old journalist is the man of the moment here in San Diego,
despite being half a world away.
In truth, Stern’s moment came seven months ago, when his article
published in the Union-Tribune revealed that Mitchell Wade, a defense
contractor, had paid an inflated price for a Del Mar home belonging
to Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham. The story noted a
corresponding surge in multimillion-dollar government contracts won
by Wade’s company, MZM Inc., thanks in part to the House Defense
Appropriations subcommittee of which Cunningham was a member.
A bombshell from the outset, Stern’s story cast an unflattering
spotlight on Cunningham, a heretofore outspoken conservative
Republican politician with a chest full of war medals and eight terms
under his belt as the representative for California’s 50th
Congressional district.
But details of the crooked real-estate deal quickly emerged, as did
stories of proffered boats and shady campaign contributions that in
turn spawned a federal investigation, a flurry of subpoenas and raids
at the homes and offices of Cunningham and Wade........
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http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/p...n29events.html
Timeline of events
Cunningham: 'I broke the law'
UNION-TRIBUNE
November 29, 2005
....June 12, 2005
Copley News Service and The San Diego Union-Tribune reveal that Mitchell Wade, a defense contractor with ties to Cunningham, took a $700,000 loss on the purchase of the congressman's Del Mar-area house while Cunningham, a member of the influential defense appropriations subcommittee, was supporting Wade's efforts to get tens of millions of dollars in contracts from the Pentagon.....
.......July 21, 2005
The U.S. Attorney's office sends notice to the San Diego County Recorder's office that it has filed a lawsuit stating it has an interest in Cunningham's Rancho Santa Fe property. The lawsuit, which was initially secret but later made public, contends Cunningham should forfeit his home to the government because it was purchased with illegally obtained money.
Aug. 5, 2005
CNS and the Union-Tribune report that Cunningham – along with other high-profile passengers, including then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay – has taken jet flights provided by Group W Transportation, owned by Poway defense contractor Brent Wilkes.
Aug. 16, 2005
Agents from the FBI, Internal Revenue Service and Department of Defense seize documents from the Poway headquarters of ADCS Inc. and the home of Wilkes, the company's president..........
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http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/p...-1n29duke.html
Randy 'Duke' Cunningham
Rep. Cunningham resigns; took $2.4 million in bribes
By Onell R. Soto
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
November 29, 2005
....Cunningham admitted in a plea agreement that he "made recommendations and took other official action" to benefit two government contractors because of the payments and not because it was "in the best interest of the country."
Contractor Wade's company, MZM Inc., received $163 million in federal work, primarily for Pentagon programs, from 2002 to 2005. It had not done government business before.
Wade has since sold the company.
Authorities investigated Cunningham's relationship with Wade and two other businessmen, <b>Brent Wilkes</b>, founder of Poway-based ADCS Inc., and Thomas Kontogiannis, a Long Island developer.
The investigation has included testimony from numerous witnesses before a San Diego federal grand jury, subpoenaed documents, and raids on the congressman's home and offices and the offices and homes of the businessmen.
The government contractors – who have not been charged – are identified in the court documents filed yesterday as "Co-conspirator No. 1 and Co-conspirator No. 2."
Justice Department officials confirmed yesterday that <b>Wilkes is Co-conspirator No. 1</b> and Wade is Co-conspirator No. 2.
The officials also confirmed that Kontogiannis and John T. Michael are the other two uncharged co-conspirators identified in the documents.
Kontogiannis controlled a financial company in Long Island, N.Y., and his wife's nephew, Michael, is president of a mortgage company there.
Wade paid more than $1.1 million in bribes, Wilkes $636,000 and Kontogiannis $328,000, according to the plea agreement and Justice Department officials.
In May 2004, several months after Cunningham bought the Rancho Santa Fe home for $2.5 million, Wilkes paid Kontogiannis $525,000 to be used to pay off the second mortgage on the home, according to the documents.
Kontogiannis said in an interview in July that he paid off the mortgage primarily as payment for his purchase of the Kelly C, a 65-foot yacht he said he bought from Cunningham for $627,000.
Prosecutors say Cunningham never sold the boat, but Kontogiannis made $58,674 in mortgage payments on it over 2½ years.
The Coast Guard has no record of a sale.
In August 2004, according to the documents, Wade paid $500,000 to Kontogiannis to pay off the Rancho Santa Fe home's first mortgage. Kontogiannis made $28,237 in mortgage payments to Washington Mutual until this June, when news of the questionable Del Mar Heights house deal broke.
This summer, Cunningham's wife filed a court declaration saying the couple were paying a $3,250 monthly mortgage on the home.
<b>Wilkes paid $11,116</b> over five months, ending in April 2001, in mortgage payments for the Kelly C, according to the documents. Cunningham bought the boat in 1997 and lived aboard it, docked in a Washington, D.C, marina a few blocks from the Capitol.
In August 2002, after buying an Arlington condominium with Kontogiannis paying the $200,000 down payment, Cunningham moved the Kelly C out of Washington, according to the plea agreement.
The agreement doesn't say what Kontogiannis received in return for his financial dealings with Cunningham.
However, in 2002, Kontogiannis pleaded guilty to being part of a $6.3 million bid-rigging scheme in New York schools and asked Cunningham for advice in how to get a presidential pardon. Kontogiannis never followed through on trying to get the pardon.
Before Kontogiannis pleaded guilty, Cunningham wrote a letter to a New York prosecutor saying the prosecution was politically motivated, according to The Washington Post and The Associated Press.
In 2002, Wade bought a 45-foot boat for $140,000, renamed it the Duke-Stir, and docked it in the same slip once occupied by the Kelly C for Cunningham to live in.
Cunningham claimed he paid docking fees and maintenance in lieu of rent for his use of the Duke-Stir, but those benefits were included in the bribery charges he admitted to yesterday.
When announcing in July that he wouldn't run for re-election, Cunningham publicly declared his innocence.
Yesterday, he said, "I was not strong enough to face the truth" about his earlier denials. "So, I misled my family, staff, friends, colleagues, the public – even myself. For all of this, I am deeply sorry."
Copley News Service writers Joe Cantlupe and Dana Wilkie contributed to this report.
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http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/p...-1n29duke.html
March 3, 2006 — A stunning investigation of bribery and corruption in Congress has spread to the CIA, ABC News has learned.
The CIA inspector general has opened an investigation into the spy agency's executive director, Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, and his connections to two defense contractors accused of bribing a member of Congress and Pentagon officials.
The CIA released an official statement on the matter to ABC News, saying: "It is standard practice for CIA's Office of Inspector General — an aggressive, independent watchdog — to look into assertions that mention agency officers. That should in no way be seen as lending credibility to any allegation.
"Mr. Foggo has overseen many contracts in his decades of public service. He reaffirms that they were properly awarded and administered."
The CIA said Foggo, the No. 3 official at the CIA, would have no further comment. He will remain in his post at the CIA during the investigation, according to officials.
Two former CIA officials told ABC News that Foggo oversaw contracts involving at least one of the companies accused of paying bribes to Congressman Randall "Duke" Cunningham. The story was first reported by Newsweek magazine.....
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http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?...rticleId=10816
“Duke” of Deception
From our February issue: The overlooked security implications of the Cunningham scandal.
By Laura Rozen
Web Exclusive: 01.13.06
Prosecutors have further targets in their crosshairs beyond Cunningham.........
....What the Time report suggests was that Cunningham might not be the biggest fish in this case after all.
The Cunningham case has revealed several lawmakers worthy of investigative scrutiny. Two men described but not named as co-conspirators in the original indictment -- <b>Brent Wilkes</b>, the chairman of San Diego-based defense contractor ADCS Inc., and Mitchell J. Wade, the founder and until recently chairman and president of defense and intelligence contractor MZM Inc. -- donated “more than a million dollars in the last ten years to a roster of politicians,”.............
.........Among the pols of potential interest to investigators is Representative Tom DeLay, whose Texans for a Republican Majority fund-raising committee received a $15,000 donation in September 2002 from Perfect Wave Technologies, a subsidiary of <b>Wilkes’</b> corporate umbrella, the <b>Wilkes</b> Corporation. Through another <b>Wilkes’</b> subsidiary, Perfect Wave also hired a lobbying firm, Alexander Strategy Group, set up by DeLay’s former Chief of Staff Ed Buckham, and which employed DeLay’s wife Christine, to lobby successfully for Perfect Wave to receive a Navy contract........
....Popping up again on the radar as well is Congressman Bob Ney, the Ohio Republican who, like DeLay, is simultaneously under investigation in the rapidly expanding Indian gaming case that has led to guilty pleas by lobbyist Jack Abramoff and PR Executive Michael Scanlon. On October 1, 2002, <b>Ney inexplicably entered praise of a San Diego-based charity headed by Wilkes,</b> the Tribute to Heroes Foundation, into the Congressional Record -- the same kind of service Ney performed for his benefactor Abramoff on more than one occasion.
Extensive reporting published by the San Diego Union-Tribune indicates that several other Republicans in southern California’s congressional delegation may have drawn the attention of investigators in the Cunningham case. Among them are Representative Duncan Hunter, identified by a Defense Department Inspector General report -- along with Cunningham -- as actively intervening with the Pentagon to try to award a contract to a document-conversion company that had given him tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions for a program the Pentagon did not request or consider a priority; Representative Jerry Lewis, chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, on which Cunningham sat; and former Congressman-turned-lobbyist Bill Lowery.....
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http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?...rticleId=10816
......There’s little doubt that Cunningham, who sat on the defense appropriations subcommittee, possessed sufficient influence to steer defense contracts to those from whom he has admitted taking bribes. In repeated interviews with The American Prospect, however, the press spokesman for the Appropriations Committee has indicated that Lewis has decided to only “informally” investigate those “programmatic recommendations” made by Cunningham in the past -- although Cunningham himself has admitted corrupting the program process. “There is an informal review going on,” committee Spokesman John Scofield explained in December. “It’s not something we had made a big announcement on.”.....
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<b>Damn "that host"...he doesn't believe our prezinent !!
What's wrong with that boy? Dosen't he know that we're a "nation at war"?</b>
Nope....I look at congressman Jerry Lewis's reaction to Cunningham's unlawful armtwisting of Pentagon procurers, and I have to conclude...no official probe by Jerry, no real committment to a "war". Foggo's still at CIA, Wilkes is walking the streets, unindicted. Must be a phoney war, or...... many officials are traitors....one or the other.....
Last edited by host; 03-09-2006 at 12:24 AM..
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