Why don't you check that out, Marv, and get back to us with a new topic?

I love how now all the Republicans are like, "He doesn't represent me." Hmm... why'd you vote for him in the last election?

It frustrates me that people thought that there was any good in the man.

I have detailed Bush's (and Rove's and the white house) ties to Jack Abramoff, before, here: http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...on#post1896327

In the interest of making the following more like a sound byte, I'll keeo it brief and we'll start with a question?

What does it indicate, in the categories of integrity and judgment, if a POTUS and his deputy chief of staff (along with the congressional majority leader, and an as yet unknown number of congressmen and senators, christian right, (Ralph Reed) and republican conservative activists (Ie Norquist) develop and maintain close ties with a prominent lobbyist and republican party operator
(president of young republicans at Brandeis U.), such as Jack Abramoff?

I'm asking because I have learned the following about Abramoff's own judgment and integrity. (Look up each point, if you are curious, it's all available on the internet):

Abramoff chose Adam Kidan to be his partner in the purchase of Suncruz Casino Ships. As an attorney, Abramoff has access to <a href="http://www.lexisnexis.com/productsandservices/">Lexis-Nexus</a> and should know how to conduct a background check. If you are partnering with someone in a $147 million purchase, you should know their background.

I've learned that Suncruz majority partners were Abramoff and Kidan. Another friend at the Preston Gates lobbying firm, Ben Waldman, owned ten percent of Suncruz and served as president in the new partnership. Waldman has been a close aid to Pat Robertson during his 1988 campaign for president:
http://newtimesbpb.com/Issues/2001-02-22/news.html

Suncruz hired Michael Scanlon as it's spokesman in 2000. Scanlon had influenced congressman Bob Ney of Ohio to publish unflattering remarks (at least twice) about original Suncruz owner, Gus Boulis, to impress Boulis as to the Abramoff & partners' clout when they needed to pressure Boulis into agreeing to the sale.

Adam Kidan's mother Judy Shemtov, was murdered; shot in the face in her Staten Island home in 1993. Brooklyn thug, with mafia ties, Chris Paciello drove the getaway car in that robbery of Kadin's stepfather's safe. (Sami Shemtov, former Israeli soldier who grew rich in the pornography business).

Sami Shemtov had suspicions that Adam Kidan was involved in the botched robbery and murder of his wife, and he sued his stepson, Adam Kidan for $250,000. Kidan lost the lawsuit and his license to practice law in New York.

Chris Paciello was not arrested until 1998, and by that time he was the owner of two flashy South Beach, Fl. nightclubs, and had briefly dated Madonna and became friends with numerous other celebrities. Paciello retained criminal lawyer Roy Black, and managed to parlay info that he had about a major NYC mob boss, into a slot for himself in the federal witness protection program, where he is reported to currently be participating.

Abramoff should have known all this when he agreed to partner with Kidan.
Kidan filed papers for Suncruz loans where he claimed to have personal assets at the time, of more than $25 million, while the truth was that he had almost no assets.

It seems that an appetite for power and money eclipsed the judgment, of Abramoff, Scanlon, Bush, Rove, Delay, Ney, Safavian, and....we'll see who else, won't we?

Ponder that fundamentalist muslims, (at least three) a week before they attacked with four hijacked airliners on 9/11, were reported by the SPTimes and the AP, in late sept., 2001 newspaper articles, to have visisted a Suncruz casino ship.

I can follow you to a point but I don't think that I can draw the logical conclusion that Abramoff, etc, allowed 9/11 to happen.

I'm a very, very liberal person. To a fault, even. I still am not 100% convinced that al Queda had anything to do with the attack on the WTC. I haven't seen conclusive evidence of all of the strings being tied up. However, I have seen a good bit of information, thanks to the 9/11 commission report, etc.

Anyway, I don't think that 9/11 could have been prevented by Abramoff, etc.

<b>Disclaimer</b>: I am not saying that these thugs had any connection to 9/11 attacks.

I am saying that our president has no credibility and that he got that way via his own poor judgment and via the judgment of the folks who he chose to appoint, or take money from, or associate with. When a POTUS chooses to have a key assistant (Susan Ralston) of a man like Abramoff, come to work for him in the West Wing of the white house, and continue his own cozy relationship with Abramoff that apparently dates back to at least 1997, and has a history of attempting to impede our right to know about what did happen on 9/11 and what he did or did not consider before going to war in Iraq, things like the following should be considered. There is much that we do not know, but we should be vigilant. I guarantee that we are in for more surprises and disappointments from our federal elected officials:

And this is an offense to my intelligence and that of all Americans who don't have wool for a hide:

http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Ch5.htm
For now the reports above seem as curious to me as this line, near the bottom of the page, in the 9/11 Commission Report :
Note to mods...if you haven't accepted that the truth is becoming stranger than fiction in Washington, there is already a place for posts that are deemed too contraversial for TFP Politics: http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=88318

I don't think that this falls into the realm of paranoia.. yet.

Thank you, Host. My comment on the article posted at #95 has drawn no response. Abramoff's and Norquist's involvement with known A'Q money sources would seem worthy of a "look" don't you think?

No... Elphaba, I don't agree. We'll wait until Bush's approval rating falls below Nixon's historical rock bottom of 25 percent...after he resigned in '74. We'll make former Bush supporters, the ones who voted for the "lesser of two evils", last November, and thereby cursed us with "four more years", beg the next congress launch an actual open investigation, where everyone testifies openly, and under oath, with no restrictive ground rules.

I make the effort to nearly exclusively use first class links in every point that I post here. The mods who have sent several of my past posts over to paranoia, do not seem to fully consider that seemingly outlandish points that are documented by reliable reports, should have a place in our discussions here.

The underlying reasoning is that some of the things that I post, and some of the opinions that I float about them, are out of the realm of the reasoning of some readers. I hope that current events will change that restraining factor here.

Chris Paciello also was reported to be seen once in Miami with Jay-Lo, and he had his hand placed on her butt.

TMI.... :D

The Miami Herald has provided additional information concerning Ney's involvement.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/112705E.shtml

Hmmmm....Ohio.

And.... my question, asked again and again....
Where the f**k is the MSM in prominently reporting what I've posted here today, and last week, etc. ?

Google news link for Kidan's mudered mother's name..... resutl? <b>none!</b>
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ne...nG=Search+News

Aside from this, in the Oct. 2, Miami Herald
And...dare I post it? In the recent issue of William Kristol's
Again...for those who accuse the MSM of being "too liberal"...of reporting prejudicially against conservatives, or against republicans..... how does all of this, square with your oft posted perceptions?

Host, we could start an entirely new thread on the current mea culpa of some members of the msp.

And probably should. You or me? :D

I think that I've covered the subject more than once:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/search....8&pp=40&page=1

Your turn.....but I don't recommend it. I thought that I made a convincing reply on a branch of the MSM subject, last week, and, it was naive of me to put the work into it that I did..... I should have anticipated that I wouldn't receive a response: http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...&postcount=104

When you post a legitimate article, Elphaba, that is available at "truthout" because of the site's "fair use" notice, it does not matter that it came from an MSM source. "thuthout" is a site that is on the "list" of "guerilla op-ed" sites, so your content and point is on "auto block". You are reduced to preaching only to the choir........

Everyone has to consider that we are all on the same side. IMO, those who thought that Bush was on "their side", or thought that a third party was a viable solution, will have to think again.

The MSM that does sometimes describe things like the following two articles
do, is shrinking. Too many suspect that the LA Times is "too liberal". When and MSM branch reports seomthing new or unique...fact check and draw your own conclusions.

All that is left to do now is to restore the system of checks and balances that was operational and observable, "in action", during the Ken Starr investigations and the impeachment of Clinton. It is in all of our interests to find out is these two reports about Abramoff and the Bush white house are true. The surest way to do that is to vote out republicans in the house and senate in eleven months from now. You cannot use the excuse that democrats spend too much of our money, or that they are too corrupt. What is happening is allowed to go on by voters who voted out the two party balance. No one was concerned that they would be held accountable if they sold their authority to Abramioff. Voters enabled this, and to see people here joke about "Brownie" on another thread, when the man who appointed him and allowed him to resign before he was fired, and allowed him to continue to be paid as a FEMA consultant, is not even blamed, let alone voters admitting their own blame. Indirectly, you voted for Abramoff.

Today, I compared with a friend the current standing of the US in regards to the 14 principles of fascism. It's been well over a year since the last time we did that. Sadly, there are only a few people here that have the slightest understanding of the term, and it has already been shown that raising any comparison of the kind is heresy on this forum. (Which is one of the 14 principles).

You are threadjacking your own topic and the US media is worthy of a new one under CURRENT circumstances. Allow me, sir.

One can only hope that the public begins to demand more accountability...I think the terrible mismanagement of Katrina relief has left a lasting impression on the public and, slowly but surely, sentiments are changing. The question, of course, is whether or not they are changing enough to create enough pressure for some serious consequences for the administration.

On a side note, regarding host's comment on third party voters. I voted third party and live in a state where there was never a question as to who would be the winner. My vote for a third party candidate had no impact on the outcome of the election whatsoever and I knew going into the voting booth that voting for a third party candidate stood no chance of impacting the outcome of the election. There were many states like this, and discouraging people in those states from voting for third parties is, IMO, detrimental to the democratic process. Now, if you want to urge people who live in states where there IS a question as to who will win to not vote for a third party candidate, that I can understand. In fact, during this past election, there was a vote exchange website (working on the honor system of course) where people in swing states who would like to support a third party could pair up with people in safe states and exchange votes. Most third party voters recognize that in a close election, and in a swing state, it may not be the best idea to vote for a third party, but that does not apply to many, or even most, voters. Not to mention, this past election was won by 3,012,499 votes and all non-Republicrat votes combined were only 1,224,611. Then take into account that, of the 99,336 "other" votes, many of them were actually non-votes, such as my roommate's write-in vote for Marx-Engels, and on top of that there are many third party voters who would just as soon not vote at all if not given a choice to vote their conscience. Finally, not all third party voters would have voted for Kerry had they been forced to pick between him and Bush. After all that, it becomes likely that a significant amount less than the 1.2 million third party votes might have actually gone to Kerry - I would suggest that Kerry had no more than 600k votes to gain from those third party voters.

Of course, that's all with the popular vote, and as we know, it's the electoral college that counts. So, let's look at Ohio since it was one of the closest states. Bush won Ohio by 118,775 votes while a total of 26,952 votes went elsewhere. Keeping the previous things in mind, it can be reasonably argued that Kerry would have likely gained no more than 13,500 of those votes. Even looking in Iowa, where the numbers are closer: Bush won by a mere 10,059 votes and a total of 13,053 votes went elsewhere, but of those votes it is extremely unlikely Kerry would have gotten over 10,000 of them, not to mention that others would have gone to Bush to sustain the lead.

Finally, one could point out the possibility of election fraud in places like Ohio with the electric voting machines and so on. This does not make a difference either because, if the election was won through fraud, it would not matter how many or how few votes went to other candidates.

The point is, third party candidate voters have nothing to do with Bush being in office for a second term. But, you're right that we are all on the same side with regards to Bush and his administration. Democrat, disgruntled Republican, other: we would all like to see Bush and his administration held accountable for their actions.

The majority of the populace is now disgusted with both parties, which hasn't happened in decades. It is in these times that the potential for a third party increases. I would sincerely like to see that in 2006, because the current system needs a good shaking.

As did I.....gotta love NY....blue state....red governor

Abramoff's web seems to grow daily, but the boldness of this one deserves special "honor". It is alleged that he caused the BIA to intervene when one of his tribal clients wanted their money back.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/112905L.shtml

Ralph Reed has been mentioned many times in relation to Abramoff in pitting one gambling interest against another. His political aspirations may be under fire as he appears to be under investigation, too. This report from the AP:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120105S.shtml

Deep Throat said to follow the money. The Washington Post has done just that with Abramoff and shows who gave and who got the money in the following link. There are several Dems on the list for the equal opportunity corruption folks. (Pattie, you've got some 'splanin' to do).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...121200286.html

PS: Could someone teach me how you do those neat descriptive links vs. the url?

url=http.yourlinkhere]your words[/url

I left out the beginning [ and end ] so the code will show

Thank you, Alpha :)

Sheesh. Abramoff corrupted journalists in his schemes, as well. And it seems some politicians are returning his money.

Link

Host predicted the outcome, and Abramoff's pending plea deal is in the works. More heads will fall, regardless of party.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122105L.shtml

For those who are interested in the background of the complicated Abramoff "story", his name was first posted on a TFP politics thread on April 16, 2005:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/search....7&pp=40&page=2

I started a thread with a more appropriate title to post my Abramoff related Indictments "fuckpoints" in. It was located at this link:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=97643

I was advised to post here, instead........
In the second report here, (posted below....) hours ago by the AP, it sez:
Bush and his staff members, Karl Rove and his assistant, Susan Ralston (she was formerly Abramoff's key assistant), and already indicted Bush admin. <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/19/AR2005091901859.html">Procurement chief David H. Safavian</a>, along with former Abramoff colleague <a href="www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Patrick_Pizzella">Patrick Pizzella</a> , appointed by Bush as assistant Labor Dept. Secretary , have enough reason for concern, due to their close ties to Abramoff, for Bush to make these erroneous, televised statements on Dec. 14:
Bush wants us to believe that this is not the biggest scandal in many years that will result in the convictions of nearly exclusively republican elected officials, their political appointees, and their aids, that it actually will be exposed as.

Bush won't want you to know this:
or this:
Michael Scanlon turned $19 million in lobbying commissions over to the government, that he had received from Indian tribes during the period that he and Abramoff collected $82 million from the tribes in lobbying fees.
<b>Michael Scanlon has agreed to testify for prosecutors in exchange for a maximum 60 month prison sentence and a $250,000 fine. Scanlon was formerly Tom Delay's press secretary.</b>
The Washington Post has graduated to openly reporting circumstances that will bring down Tom Delay and possibly some folks in the white house, too, along with possibly 19 other elected republicans in congress, <b>if Jack Abramoff does cooperate with prosecutors as a result of his reported plea deal.</b>

We aren't done yet.....read on!

Remember the guilty plea last month from former congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-CA), who admitted to accepting $2.4 million in bribes in exchange for his political influence in defense dept. procurement of defense contracts?

One of the two defense contractors who bribed Cunningham, Brett Wilkes, paid Ed Buckman and his "Alexander Group", mentioned in our large article in the preceding post, a lot of money......
In the post linked here:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...0&postcount=36

I had spent several hours researching (half a night....) and then posting about Wilke's ties to high government officials, in the post linked above.

If you have gotten this far and are curious as to why the posted research related to Wilkes was deleted, especially since it was related to Elphaba's report about CIFA and the contracts that Randy Cunningham's congressional committee had awarded to the other defense contractor who had bribed Cunningham....Mitchell Wade, explore the post linked above and make your own inquiry as to where the rest of the material went.

I know that the Abramoff/Delay/Bush admin./Cunningham investigation is complicated. It will be with us for some time into the future. Become familiar with it. I am weary....both from my efforts to present it in one place on this forum, which was thwarted, and then in several places, where the reaction was to delete a large chunk of material that I had posted.

I too am weary Host......Weary of the dissatisfaction and contempt you hold for the Moderation of this board. You are a guest here....remember that.

Or go elsewhere

I'm weary too...let's sum this up and get Host off the Martyr Express.

This may be radical, but it appears that the system is going to work. Yay for the US Justice System! If Abrahamson cuts a deal and provides evidence that leads to corrupt officials being sacked and prosecuted - good! I don't care if they are Republican, Democrat, conservative or liberal...hell, I don't care if the Pope himself gets bagged. Whoever they are, they will have deserved it!

I was appalled when Host's Abramoff thread was tacked onto Pan's Bush Cronyism topic, but it appears to have been prescient.

Scott McClellan has been asserting that Bush never met Abramson, a "Pioneer" in campaign fund raising. Given his strong support by Norquist and Delay, I find that very hard to believe and have been searching for images (nada) or articles that say otherwise. I stumbled upon this one today. (See the link for the documents posted)

Link

You nailed it. I'm rejoicing that this appears to be something that might finally clean up Congress somewhat.

I was so happy, I skimmed one of Host's posts. It's "marvelous" in that he says he stayed up half the night researching this affair, but unless I missed something, he didn't happen to see any Democrats involved. So I took it upon myself to post this:

Link

Marv no one is denying that some democrats have recieved money also but the truth is there are far fewer democrats than republicans who recieved money. Also the passages you highlighted draw away from the fact that many republicans are not returning all of the money for the exact same reasons, for instance Bush....

Plus it's rather ironic that the republicans, who have made a campaign out of being the party of "higher" "moral" "values" are so heavilly caught up in this.

Democrats who are involved in this should be ousted and jailed too. Admittedly if we were to do that with everyone who's likely involved, the congressional custodian would probably have to be drafted to be the tie breaker between the 2 politicians left in office, but if we need to clean house, then we should clean house, without worrying about the party of the people we're going after.

C'mon, Marv. You don't honestly believe Host is unaware that both parties are involved? Silly man. :lol:

No, I'm certain he's aware of it. It's just that his hatred of Republicans is so intense that I've never observed him trying to inject the least bit of parity into his posts. In fact, he's been caught editing out portions of his linked material which undermine his position.

Which, of course, was the point of MY post.

<marquee><img src=http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y254/MikeFer/oops.gif></img></marquee>

Sorry you missed that.

Ayup...Damned, if he kept the posts short (with a full link) and damned if he posted the full article. All I saw was that you yellow highlighted two paragraphs of a fully posted article by Host. Your original comment was about missing the involvement of democrats, but your point seems to have morphed into something else. What exactly did I miss? :)

ok, here's the bush - abramoff picture

http://www.wonkette.com/politics/bushabramoff1.jpg

i laughed when i saw this. you really can't see either man in the shot. there may or may not be anything of substance between these two men, but for now we have a funny picture that proves a blurred abramoff and the back of bush's head occupied the same room.

i guess i should link to the story
http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...158908,00.html

Abramoff claims that he has been with Bush on nearly a dozen occasions, with formal pictures taken. Time magazine reports to have seen four (iirc) pictures of Bush and Abramoff. Why this picture is published as anything meaningful is beyond me.

What I find really odd is that all Bush had to say is ... "oh, yeah... I think I remember him; one of those Pioneer guys, right?" ... and no one would be searching for "proof" that he knows Abramoff.

Back on Jan. 27, I wrote to the nytimes ombudsman, public@nytimes.com to request that his LIBER-ULL newspaper correct this Jan. 26 <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/27/politics/27judge.html?_r=1">story</a>
so that it includes the facts about Susan Ralston's background and recent raise in salary and promotion to "special assistant to the" POTUS. I got no response, and no correction has been made. Today, the LIBER-ULL press is stumbling over itself to get out the "facts" about the Abramoff/Ralston?Rove connection, but still the "press" refuses to report the information contained below, even though it is previously reported fact that Ralston has been promoted from Rove's assistant to Bush's special assistant, and that she <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/custom/2005/06/06/CU2005060601310.html">sits</a> just four office doors from the oval office:
117 listings http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ne...moff&scoring=d for the same "news report" that omits the information contained below:

As far as pictures, this may be as good as it gets..... Either the thugs underestimate the damage that this association has the potential of causing if it is broadcast properly, or....they are confident that this investigation and resulting prosecutions can be contained via the interim appointment of their own "hack", Alice Fisher as head of DOJ's criminal division, stacking the SCOTUS with Roberts and Alito, and of course, the "pardon card"! We must continue to publicize the following "info" thoroughly..... tirelessly....constantly...

(If this was not an area of concern for this Junta, why would they trot out <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/28/AR2005122801588_pf.html">"steno Sue" Schmidt from WaPo</a>, on Dec. 28, to "muddy" the facts as to how Ralston came to work for Bush and Rove, shortly after they took office in 2001. These thugs are alarmed enough to spread the "story", that the so far unindicted Ralph Reed was responsible for Ralston's hiring, and not Jack Abramoff, himself.)

This BS comes from the office of the POTUS, the most powerful politician in the world, but nonetheless, a petty, desparate, cornered rat, still deluded by ego and ambition.

<b>"'Upset' Ralston says she's not going anywhere
Rita M. Gerona-Adkins, Dec 21, 2005
WASHINGTON, D.C. --- Susan B. Ralston has determined to clear the air once and for all after speculations about her job at the White House have been published, including in the <a href="http://www.philippinenews.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=443b32a25f85eed21d2cd07e9b945192">Philippine News.</a>

“I am focused on my job serving the President in my current capacity,” she said in a telephone call from her office at the White House on December 12 to this correspondent....."</b>

<center><center><img src="http://thinkprogress.org/wp-images/upload/thumb-ralston.jpg">

<a href="http://www.thinkprogress.org/leak-scandal#ralston">RALSTON IS ROVE’S RIGHT-HAND</a>

From Newsweek, May, 2005:
<i>...."But the lobbyist’s ties to the White House extended well beyond money. <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7577133/site/newsweek/?page=2&#note">When top Bush adviser Karl Rove was looking for an assistant in early 2001, Abramoff suggested his own top aide, Susan Ralston.</a> She remains one of Rove’s top deputies. At the same time, Bush tapped Abramoff as member of his Presidential Transition Team, advising the administration on policy and hiring at the Interior Department, which oversees Native American issues. That level of close access to Bush, DeLay and other GOP leaders has been cited by many of the Indian tribes who hired Abramoff with hopes of gaining greater influence with the administration and Congress on gaming issues. Whether the tribes got their money’s worth is a question still being investigated by Congress, but there’s no question some doors were opened. In 2001, Bush met personally with a group of Indian leaders—including at least one tribe represented by Abramoff—to talk about his tax cut plan. The meeting was reportedly arranged by Grover Norquist, a prominent GOP activist with close ties to the administration and Abramoff.

While many GOP lawmakers have sought to distance themselves from Abramoff, the White House has remained largely quiet on Bush’s ties to the controversial lobbyist. <b>Last fall, when Congress opened hearings into Abramoff’s lobbying and fund-raising, the Bush-Cheney campaign pointedly refused to return a $2,000 contribution check from the lobbyist and said there was no reason to question any other checks Abramoff brought in as a top fund-raiser for the campaign.</b>

Editor's Note: On April 21, a White House spokesman told NEWSWEEK that Abramoff had played no role in Rove's hiring of Ralston."</i>
<i>"It's also interesting <a href="http://www.mydd.com/story/2005/8/3/141256/2833">to note</a> that one of Ralston's <a href="http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=50318">primary functions in Rove's office</a> is to "take messages for Rove at the White House, then call [Grover] Norquist to tell her whether she should put the caller through." Now, this is undoubtedly just the case for lobbyists. There's no way in the world that Karl Rove is having calls from journalists screened by Grover Norquist. I know this crowd is corrupt, but that would just be plain stupid.

However, it makes you wonder how many calls to Rove go unrecorded in the logs. If Rove is denying the existence of other phone calls with journalists and citing his phone logs as evidence, Fitzgerald may have caught Rove in a bit of a pickle. Even if this isn't the case, <b>Ralston is the one person with intimate knowledge of what calls come into and go out of Rove's office.</b> I can see where this would make her very valuable to the grand jury, despite the insistence of at least one Rove loyalist, who said her questioning was simply a matter of "wrapping up the loose ends.""</i>

Susan Ralston "coverage" at <a href="http://www.google.com/custom?domains=philippinenews.com&q=susan+ralston&sa=Search&sitesearch=philippinenews.com&client=pub-4889336541841884&forid=1&ie=ISO-8859-1&oe=ISO-8859-1&cof=GALT%3A%23008000%3BGL%3A1%3BDIV%3A%23336699%3BVLC%3A663399%3BAH%3Acenter%3BBGC%3AFFFFFF%3BLBGC%3A336699%3BALC%3A0000FF%3BLC%3A0000FF%3BT%3A000000%3BGFNT%3A0000FF%3BGIMP%3A0000FF%3BFORID%3A1%3B&hl=en">philippinenews.com</a>

Susan Ralston's <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/custom/2005/06/06/CU2005060601310.html">"neighborhood"</a>
Susan's office is "no. 9" on the WaPo west wing map, published in May, 2005, just 4 doors down from the chimperor...

<b>As an aside.....</b>
Ralston worked for Jack Abramoff at Preston Gates, and she followed him to Greenberg Traurig. What level of security clearance does she enjoy? What are the odds that she has tipped Abramoff off regarding information that the white house certainly has obtained in it's efforts to stay up to date on the details of DOJ's Alice Fisher's "prosecution" of Abramoff?

In a prosecution of Abramoff that actually is "no holds barred", managed by a non-partisan prosecution with unquestioned integrity, wouldn't it be odd to find someone like Ralston, former key aid to Abramoff, documented in publicly available emails to have "controlled" the distribution of "bribes" to legislators, as the indictment of Abramoff describes free meals and other "considerations" (premium tickets to DC area sporting events) to clearly be categorizes as....

working in close proximity to the chief law enforcement officer, of the applicable jurisdiction, in this case the office of the POTUS? Shouldn't Ralston be deemed a material witness at the least, or a person under investigation? Wouldn't a truly uncomprimised prosectution team be pressuring Ralston to "roll over" on Abramoff, to provide confirmation that he has provided reliable and detailed information regarding the "perks" (bribes) that he bestowed on legislators?

Ralston still working in the white house, with a $25,000 raise and a promotion, does not pass the "smell test" at this stage in this scandal. The opposition must pressure the DOJ and the executive branch about these inconsistancies.
<h4>Wouldn't a U.S. press with a "liberal bias" be making an effort to refute Bush's denials about his ties to Abramoff, by enthusiastically reporting the background, salary raise, and job promotion of Susan Ralston?</h4>

The immediate concern is that congress has handed "new powers", to a criminal executive branch, not only criminal in it's waging of aggressive war, and violations of human rights, as outlined by SCOTUS rulings, and domestically, as outlined in special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's indictment of VP Cheney's COS, Irwin Libby, and in filings submitted to Libby's criminal trial court judge, but also in the matter of convicted felon, Jack Abramoff, and by <b>the 6 year employment, in the white house, just doors from the POTUS, of presidential and Rove "special assistant, and former "key assistant" to Abramoff, at both the Traurig law firm, and at Abramoff's employer, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/28/AR2005122801588_pf.html">Preston Gates</a> before Traurig....none other than Susan Ralston:
(Pictured with Bush, in the previous post....)</b>
The following is even more disturbing, since Bush himself, as well as his key aids, have denied the following associations with Abramoff, numerous times:
<b>If the POTUS was trustworthy and competent, I would object to the passing of the "Detainee" anit-"terror", bill, out of concern that a future, less ethical or credible president might abuse these new "powers". It defies credulity that congress would transfer such unmonitored and unchecked extra-constitutional discretion and detention and prosecutorial authority to officials who have such a high probability of being felons, traitors, and war criminals, themselves!</b>

The White House responds to the charges:
How do you feel about so many influential members of the "one party" in power, being linked with "plea copping" scumbags.....like these:
<h3>If we can just get through the elections in 5 weeks, without anyboy else getting indicted.....we'll maintain "one party" rule !</h3>

It has been more than a year since first I wrote about this obvious conflict of interests and symbol of white house corruption and cronyism, seated just a few doors down from the POTUS. Now, she is gone....the most recent, after the arrest, last year, of former Abramoff associate and white house chief procurement officer, Safavian, who was convicted of accepting "favors" from Abramoff....
I've posted extensiverly about the issue of Abramoff's former key assistant being placed in the new Bush white house administration, in early 2001. Now she resigns on a friday, after 5:00 pm, the time of the week when all potentially damaging news is always released by politicians..............

I'll keep this one short....isn't it "odd" that these folks still control the executive branch of the US government? Will the democratic majority in congress reveal enough damning evidence to end up with no choice but to hold impeachment hearings and refer criminal charges? I didn't "create" the details in this thread. I simply posted them. A number of the articles now do not exist at the links where they were published. The mods, in the past, have closed a number of threads that dealt with tangents of this topic. They were created because they were relevant on their own, and there was too much specific information to "lump" the details solely into this more general thread.

Instead of threads like this being the searchable archive that they were intended to be, this site was "improved", last year, to the extent that older threads contents do not show up in search results. Thank you to all who have posted encouraging words, your appreciation has helped to offset the roadblocks thrown up by those who I would not have predicted would opt to do so. I think that this thread is an example of the depth of this forum that seems at odds with what the intent is for this forum to be. The depth, IMO, is what sets it apart....makes it an historical record, rather than just another discussion board. I've been surprised that there is so much resistance to the idea that this forum can be both. I am also surprised at the continued indifference, complacency, and the defense of what seems indefensible, in reaction to what has gone on in the Bush administration....maybe it's just a matter of bringing more facts to people's attention.....

.....Thought we were "at war"....so much for secure communications at the highest levels of our government.....

This relates directly to the information in the preceding post....anyone take exception to the accusation that these "folks" conduct the "peoples' business", as thugs running a continuing criminal enterprise....R-I-C-O....might conduct it...
anyone ??? The similarities seem uncanny.....

This will be quick...The Dems have been encouraging a little too much change in the political system over the last 50 years and sadly enough the System has proceeded down the wrong path and both main parties are so corrupt it isn't funny. But being an original Constitution respecting, freedom loving conservative, I will vote for whatever party will be the last one to put anymore major restrictions on our firearms rights. And i say this because when you come down to protecting freedom, speech can be silenced, misrepresented, and terribly distorted by almost anyone with enough money anymore. And although freedom of speech is one of the most important, ultimately protecting freedom takes weapons as well. Just a thought... :)

i post this while trying really hard to not say anything sarcastic in response to no. 143....the unfolding scandal at the world bank involving yet another bushcrony is clearly the fault of the democrats...such idiotic conclusions would folow from it. but for this, there is no-one and nothing to blame but the right for this latest example of the kind of shabby, ill-considered nonsense that is apparently the modus operandum of everyday life in conservativeland, such as it is now:

source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?hpid=topnews



the new york times rushes in to provide an "analysis" that in fact just states the obvious:

source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/14/wa...=1&oref=slogin

conclusion: wolfowitz should never have been appointed to this position in the first place.

the step-by-step self-destruction of the neo-con movement and of the right's coalition more generally is at this point kind of amazing to watch, a huge slow-motion trainwreck.

At least this crony didn't pass the snicker test. I suppose I should be pleased that he wasn't a veterinarian like the last appointee.

Link

I'm willing to bet he has been defrauding Medicaid.

Finally, there has been a move on Doolittle. I have been wondering what the delay was.

Link

It is with profound regret that these developments come long after many of the members with whom we debated the Bush presidency and it's phony, GWOT, ceased to participate in the discussions in this politcal forum.....

In August, 2005, I posted the following, on this thread:
<a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=93064"> Whitehouse Will Appoint Yale "Bonesman" to Control "Plamegate" Prosecutor Fitzgerald</a>
Almost 14 months later, we were "treated" to this:

I went back and enlarged the letters in a paragraph of my 9/29/06 post (# 142), referencing the DOJ Inspector General's findings about former RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman's instructions concerning Jack Abramoff's interest in the continued assignment by the DOJ of Frederick Black as US Attorney on Guam......

<b>Now....with these latest revelations, I'm begining to wonder if the Bureau of Federal Prisons will have to provide a facility that will exclusively house corrupt, and "traitorously corrupt", former employees of the DOJ and the executive branch....but, then again, who would investigate and prosecute them.....themselves?</b>

Remember the long, long, GWOT.....I guess that it is over, or that it never really mattered in the hearts of the politicians who so fiercely embraced and embellished it:
Consider that, a month ago, when the following article was published, the specifics in R. G. Meissner's 2002 CNMI security report had not yet been made public:

I bet the DC Madame and her "escorts" will be linked to "Dusty's" poker parties. Any takers? :)

There is a new crony appointment that is so in your face that it makes one wonder about the extent of this administration's chutzpah. The following article also provides a nice summary of the known scandals.

Link

there's probably little reason to post this as i am sure it is well-known by now...mostly, i think doing it is a bit therapeutic:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/17/wo...hp&oref=slogin