San Diego's own Bush

I'm tellin ya, readers, the rest of you got nothin on San Diego.

Long ruled by Building Developers, we're finally getting to the point of unsustainability. Everybody wants to live here because of the weather, never mind the realities that make it possible to actually live here, like water and housing and infrastructure. There were plenty of jobs thanks to the Navy, airplane pioneers like Ryan and Lindburgh, Jonas Salk, and others. There was lots of open land to build on, and so we grew, and grew, and grew, 600,000+ when I was a lad to 1.2 million today, just for the city mind you, county population growth is even bigger.

Lots of changes, twists, turns, as America's Finest City has become Enron by the Bay. And you might have seen the sinkhole/landslide/slippage recently in La Jolla, up on Mt Soledad specifically, CNN had it I'm sure, and like all good teevee journalists, they showed the disaster, then left.

But what really happened there? Did this just suddenly appear overnight? Were there no warnings? Mountains (okay, it's a tall hill, covered in houses) generally don't just move on their own, so what preciptated the move? Mayor Sanders was quick to deny City culpability, that evil bastard City Attorney Mike Aguirre said we better look into it.

Could it be that maybe the developers have built in places they shouldn't be? Like on an earthquake fault, hillside slip zone? And could it be that the bought and paid for mayor, former Police Chief and Savior of the corrupt Red Cross of San Diego is working overtime to protect the developers and the city from assignation of fault? Because if the city gets assigned the blame, more questions arise, like who let them build there, who wasn't doing their jobs, and how much money did the developers spend to get their way?

Look at these e-mails and tell me that the City, and by extension, the Mayor, weren't aware of a looming problem on the Mountain.

The designated area of concern, the 5700 block of Soledad Mountain Road, is on the verge of possible catastrophic failure due to continual ground movement caused by an unknown condition...

Which is why they were letting a quarter million dollar sole source request for monitoring ground movement in the area, on 9/27/07. And the slide occured on 10/3/07, and the city's responses had been band-aid at best.

After all, they were getting reports about problems since June, there had been serious slides in the area in the past, and yet, the Mayor was vacationing, er, sitting in a classroom, sorry, lobbying in Washington DC when the slide occured, and nothing had been done to address the problem, or prepare for an inevitable problem.

So the next time you think you have it bad, think about San Diego. We have the worst President ever, the most evil Vice President ever, a horrible actor as Governor, and Mini Me Jerry Sanders Bush as Mayor, a real trifecta if there ever was one.

What Corruption looks like

I was reading about Sen Stevens and his upcoming fall from grace over at TPM's Muckraker blog and I wanted to read that article where Stevens said this:

''We invite people we think can afford to put a contribution into the till,'' [Stevens] said, ''and people they want to meet.''

Did he really say that? On the record? This is why the corrupt culture of money and lobbyists is so pernicious, so like arundo is in our local waterways, choking out the natives so it can propagate itself in perpetuity.

Clicking on the hoped for link, though, led me to something else. The sponsors for this fishing "event." Just look at that list of sponsors, for a fishing tournament to save a sportfishing river. Think about this for a moment, if you will. The 3 Generals, GE, GM, GD, Big Oil, Boeing, United Technology, SAIC, Raytheon, Northrup Grumman, quite an impressive list so that a bunch of fat cats can continue to sports fish on their Alaskan River, something beyond the reach of most Americans I'd presume to say.

Compare that group to this group, for Stan Humphries Charity Golf Tournament. It's a pretty big event, proceeds benefit Rady Childrens Hospital, the sponsors are mostly local, lots of service and consumer goods corporate sponsors, but you don't see the Big Oil, Big Military Industrial Complex types, many based in San Diego, on the list of sponsors, do you.

It's this sickening contrast that tells you where the priorities lie, plain as can be. Buy a Senator, the Big Boys show up. Help children, you get just some people who care a little, who at the very least, realize that it is for a "good cause" and well worth the cash they toss at Stan and Childrens Hospital.

Marshall notes that Stevens didn't just suddenly become corrupt, on a whim as it were, no, he's been as vile and un-American as can be for quite some time. And the reporters are just now glomming on to that?

How the hell do you think republicans keep getting elected in this country, because of their good works, their good deeds, their wonderful legislative records? Their generosity and compassion as evidenced by their actions to help out the victims of Katrina?

Nope, it's by having slush funds all over the country, fattened by the policies they push, the tax cuts and business opportunities overseas that mark the ways and means of the Bush Presidency. How they sleep at all escapes me, how they justify their crimes defies me, but someday, somehow, these people are going to get theirs. Ted Stevens is in a race with Doolittle and Lewis for the next gopper thug pol to go down, I'm rooting for a three way tie.

Food

Why are we buying basic food products from China? Food products we produce in this country in large quantities, like wheat gluten?

Citing advice from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Nelson said any melamine the fish consume is likely to pass out of their systems in a matter of days, won't accumulate in their bodies, and poses no danger to people who might eat the salmon, which wouldn't be consumed until after returning from the sea years from now.

I trust the FDA, don't you? They would never put politics ahead of food or drug safety, would they? No, not George Bush's FDA. A quote from the first one, read the second link about silicone breast implants, VIOXX and Kessler.

Despite recommendations from FDA and independent scientists that the drug was appropriate for [s]ale OTC, the FDA declined to approve it. Virtually everyone involved knew this was a political pay-off to Bush's right wing conservative base. So the FDA is being sued by the Center for Reproductive Rights. As part of this suit, the CRR's lawyers have been taking depositions of FDA officials. On Thursday it was to be Crawford's turn.

[But on] Wednesday Ms. [Barbara] Van Gelder, who is his personal lawyer, asked for a delay, saying she would instruct him to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights.

Cause he was being investigated for criminal charges of selling stock of companies he regulated.

Why is the Bush Administration still in office? When every branch they run is corrupt and just a tool for the corporations, run from the top as long and as hard as they can get away with it? Thats what's happening at Justice, that's what's happening at FEMAS or HSD, at the FDA, Interior, Defense, well, I guess Frank Rich wrote about it today too, hopefully somebody has broken the barrier to share.

They're Not Indispensible

Two men, same story. Both soft spoken to the point of insipidness. Both feckless, fawning, toadies to the Bush/Cheney Axis of Venal. Both consider themselves as more important than the institutions they serve.

Says Bush's favorite death enabler, “I am committed to working with you in trying to restore the faith and confidence you need to work with me,” as if keeping his job was the main thrust of the hearings.

Says the neo-con warmongering ideologue, [l]ook, I believe in the mission of this organization, and I believe that I can carry it out. I've had many expressions of support, as well as the things that you referred to. I come back to what we agreed to in that communique, which is that we need to work our way through this, because it's more important for him to stay on as Bank President then it is to restore the credibility of the Bank. Really. Look, it's been a painful time for Paul. He said so himself.

Not only was this a painful personal dilemma, but I had to deal with it when I was new to this institution, and I was trying to navigate in uncharted waters.

Yes, that's right, ladies and germs, it hurt him deeply to get his girlfriend a big fat raise and a nice position out of his spit shined hair. Jeebus.

Gonzales, of course, takes the cake. In this version of the AP story they quote this gem: "The notion that there was something that was improper that happened here is simply not supported," Gonzales said, but, as they also noted in the article, you have to wonder how he would know that, given the [s]eventy-one times he fell back on faulty memory, saying he could not recall or remember conversations or events surrounding the firings.

After weeks of highly intensive "preparation" (another instance of a word reaching new heights of redefinition by the Bushites) this was the best that Gonzales could come up with? I still don't effing remember? In a normal world such a miserable memory would be cause for the removal of such a manager as simply intolerable. In the real world you don't become a powerful manager by being unable to remember the details and content of important meetings, it just doesn't work that way.

So clearly there is something else to this. Part of the strategy to impede, stall, and delay, justice and any rollback of the multi headed Bush/Cheney/Corporate/Neo-Con agenda, and part to keep in place those people who will carry out said agenda as long as possible. Look, there are plenty of people who could preside over the World Bank as well as and even better than Wolfowitz. Likewise for Gonzales. (D'oh, ya think?) But how many would carry out the corruption, the protection, the delusions, the coverups, and the abuse of those institutions for benefit of the Axis of Venal like Abu Gonzales and Wolfie?

The World Bank doesn't have a mechanism for removing the President. But they don't have a mechanism for NOT removing him either. So here's a suggestion. Get together, agree that he's a blight and an embarassment and a pox on their credibility, and fire his ass.

Congress does have a solution for Gonzales. Monday, the House should begin impeachment proceedings against him, then impeach him, then send him over to the Senate, where they can convict him for lying serially to Congress and obstructing justice and perjury.

Then let's see Bush pick replacements with integrity. Hahahahahahahahahahahaha ha!!!!

Peeling Back the Web of Lies

You never know where an investigation is going to lead you, and this business about the USA's is a classic example of that.

What started out as a series of questions about the firings of a handful of US Attorney's has gotten out of the control of Rover and his team of bankrupt bullies. A bunch of people, including Republicans, have said that if they had told the truth from the beginning this would have all blown over in a week or two. Me, I'm not convinced of that, first of all, if it comes from the right it's a pretty much some flavor of lie, excepting the foma they would never use, second because I don't believe that they could just tell the truth.

Not because they're incapable of truth telling, a not unreasonable conclusion to arrive at, but because there is no acceptable version of the truth to this story that wouldn't have started this ball rolling, once the Democrats regained control of Congress. And why? Because the people they wanted to fire, specifically Carol Lam, were right in the middle of serious investigations that would require explanation from Congress. And telling them they fired her because they wanted to was not, and is not, cutting it.

But they had to fire her, because her road was going to end up in Dick Cheney's office, hell it already has, so they came up with a cover story to obfuscate, confuse, muddy the water is todays term, delay, trivialize, delay, and so on. Even if it costs them the Presidents favorite counselor, Alberto Gonzales, a willing sacrifice no doubt.

Ah, Dick Cheney, can't you just smell the sharp tang of petroleum products in the air at the mere mention of his name? Here's a reminder of what all of the actions of Bush/Cheney really boil down to, a story I don't recall seeing much, Laura Rozen linked it from her article above, but you really should read it to see our government in action. It has all the ingredients, and here's a taste.

"There were statements made: 'Don't bother the oil companies,' " Maxwell told the House Natural Resources Committee, which is investigating allegations of mismanagement in the royalty program run by the Minerals Management Service of the Interior Department.

[snip...]According to Interior Department data, enforcement revenue averaged well over $100 million a year during the 1990s, peaking at more than $331 million in 2000. In the six years since then, enforcement revenue has averaged about $46 million a year.

[snip...]The inspector general estimated that the Interior Department had reduced the number of auditors by 15 percent since 2000 and was completing about 22 percent fewer audits than it had six years earlier.

"It does appear that we're getting ripped off, plain and simple," said Rep Nick Rahall 2nd., a Democrat from West Virginia ...

The Interior Department is under fire for other problems in the royalty program as well. It is struggling without much success to correct leasing mistakes that could allow oil companies to escape $10 billion in royalties over the next decade or so.

And so the US Attorney investigation rumbles on, and now it has Rover in the crosshairs. for violations not directly related to the Purge, 5 million freakin e-mails????? Over 6 years, 50 people would average 45 e-mails every day of the year to write that much stuff. Peel the Bush White House onion and everything turns to ashes, lies and deceit. Everything. That story above, they were ripping off Indian Tribes too, you wonder who was involved in that? We don't need a special prosecutor, we need Elliot Ness to clean out this whole rat's nest of RICO violations. The Democrats need to start impeaching Bush's Patriot Act replacement USA's. They need to start removing Bush's appointees wherever they can, but Justice is the place to start. This simply cannot continue, we can't allow them to run out the clock. And don't think I'm criticizing Congressional Democrats at all, I'm not. I'm just saying what I think they need to do.

The thing that I fear, and you can see the media and rover setting it up, is that when the soulless Gonzales resigns to go back to spending time scrabbling in the dirt he "rose" up from, is that will be the end of these investigations.

Rover is setting up Gonzales, he being the perfect empty vessel following orders from his leaders, as the focus of all things evil in this White House. The media, being at turns complicit, lazy, shallow, insipid, and corporate, will certainly sniff at Gonzales' fall, then search eagerly for the first distraction to toss over his still warm carcass, but will Congress, the Blogs, and the Real Media do the same?

Not if I can help it, me and my legion of readers.

Brent Wilkes Plays Carol Lam Card

Brent Wilkes lawyer, Mark Geragos, the same guy trying to screw the city of San Diego for Alex Spanos, has his hand in the Brent Wilkes Randy Cunningham scandal too. Now he's playing the card dealt him by A Gonzales for his client, Brent Wilkes.

A lawyer for former Poway defense contractor Brent Wilkes told a judge yesterday “there is no way” his client will plead guilty to charges stemming from the Randy “Duke” Cunningham bribery scandal.

The lawyer, Mark Geragos, also said he planned to seek dismissal of the case because he has reason to believe former U.S. Attorney Carol Lam may have leaked secret grand jury documents to the media.

Even though Ms. Lam's dismissal for cause has been well and truly repudiated, the issue opens enough of a door for a snake like Geragos to stick his foot in, with this claim that Lam leaked grand jury documents, he hopes to get Wilkes off without a trial.

So far, the judge doesn't seem to be buying it, and given what I remember from local reporting, I can't recall any reporting based on GJ leaks that amounted to anything more than the whisper that Wilkes and Foggo were going to be indicted, and given that we all were quite familiar with their involvement, that wasn't much of a leak.

But it's enough for Geragos, that suggestion of impropriety, and he's going to try to use the Democratic investigations of the USA Purges to bolster his case.

In court he referred to e-mails – unearthed as part of the congressional investigation of the controversial firings of Lam and seven other U.S. attorneys – that supposedly bolster his position. After court, he would not elaborate.

Fortunately the case seems to be proceeding, and I have to like the comments later in that article that suggest Geragos is full of it.

A scenario in which Lam was thwarted by the Justice Department, then leaked documents to the press to ultimately obtain indictments, seemed far-fetched to some lawyers familiar with the office's protocols for obtaining indictments.

“If the Justice Department balked, I would think they would not give approval and she wouldn't have returned the indictment,” said defense attorney Charles LaBella, a former San Diego U.S. attorney. “I just can't imagine a U.S. attorney would ignore the approval process. It's not consistent with how Carol operated.”

But consistent with how a Bushite would operate. So the judge will hear arguments on May 14, and he's set a trial date before September.

Just remember, Wilkes is the one with all of the dealings with the Congressmen, Hunter and Doolittle and DeLay etc. He's the one involved with the CIA, he's the one who probably is/was CIA, and with his procurement buddy Foggo, he's the one that can uncover a lot of the general corruption of the Republicans in Congress. I don't know who's a bigger fish, Wilkes or Abramoff, but it's worth a full scale investigation to find out. Here's hoping the Interim USA for San Diego is a professional and not a crony. More on that later.