Culture of Corruption

To not see this coming you had to be so deep in that "party of moral values" crap a crack team of Halliburton employees couldn't get the stench of Cheney's rectum out of your shoelaces with a no bid contract.

Highlights from This Week in Hammer and Friends
CBSNews.com

The [DeLay] indictment sent a shock wave through the GOP establishment, which is already reeling from a swath of criminal and ethics investigations. Three individuals, eight corporations and two political action committees connected to DeLay have been indicted as a result of the probe. In addition, the government's top procurement official, David Safavian, was arrested in September for obstructing a criminal investigation into über-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a close DeLay ally. Abramoff himself is under criminal investigation for defrauding Indian tribes and was indicted for wire fraud in Florida in a separate case. Top White House aides, including Karl Rove and Scooter Libby, have been targeted by a special prosecutor investigating the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame. Representative Duke Cunningham announced he would not run for re-election after overselling his house for $700,000 to a military industry lobbyist; he too has been indicted. FDA chief Lester Crawford resigned unexpectedly after just two months on the job, possibly because of failure to report his wife's sizable pharmaceutical-industry holdings. And DeLay's Senate counterpart, Bill Frist, is battling possible insider-trading charges for dumping millions in HCA stock, a company founded by his father and run by his brother, weeks before it plunged in value. The U.S. Attorney in Manhattan and the Securities and Exchange Commission opened an investigation into Frist and HCA in September.

"The fact that Tom DeLay is under criminal indictment and Senate majority leader Bill Frist is under criminal investigation is a historic first," says Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). "This demonstrates the culture of corruption among the Congressional leadership that has become a cancer on our country."

Mmmmmm, you know I'm a sucker for alliteration. A Congressional cancer in our country. I heard that.

Of course, this is just the "mainstream" stuff. Oh, there's more and more coming. Might as well link it all here.

Vagabond nailed it awhile back. What we live under is a "Kleptocracy." Ruled by thieves.

I tell you what if you are corrupt and still remind in your position like Brown from FEMA, DeLay in the congress and Frist all you have to do is be friends to the ruling party and have Bush to back you up along with all the big corporations that help the Republicans financially to gain the with house.

This America after all the land of the free enterprise as long as is not the poor tax payer citizens, we will never be so lucky.

And by the way if you want to stick to your favorite leaders and understand their hardships and their right to do what their do, tune to FOX news even Bennett after his outrageous remarks about blacks was defended in Fox today.

www.msnbc.msn.com...

I tell you the leadership of our nation is falling apart due to their not only corruption but idealistic supremacy.

In the Beginning, There Was Abramoff
NYTimesSELECT.com
By FRANK RICH
Published: October 2, 2005

Tom DeLay's indictment in Texas is only a tiny detail within a vast Boschian canvas of depravity.

To continue reading this article, you must be a subscriber to TimesSelect.

Sorry America. The cost of the truth just went up. Of course, all the corporate approved news and White House press releases are still free like they always were.

Here's some of what Rich had to say on the Culture of Corruption in DC though.

Those who still live in the reality-based community, however, may sense they're watching the beginning of the end of something big. It's not just Mr. DeLay, a k a the Hammer, who is on life support, but a Washington establishment whose infatuation with power and money has contaminated nearly every limb of government and turned off a public that by two to one finds the country on the wrong track.

Listen instead to Andrew Ferguson, of the conservative Rupert Murdoch magazine, The Weekly Standard. As far back as last December in a cover article on the sleazy lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Mr. Ferguson was already declaring "the end of the Republican Revolution."

The bottom line, Mr. Ferguson wrote, was a culture antithetical to everything conservatives had stood for in the Gingrich revolution of 1994. Slaying a corrupt, bloated Democratic establishment was out, gluttony for the G.O.P. and its fat cats was in. Mr. Abramoff and his gang embodied the very enemy the "Contract With America" Congress had supposedly come to Washington to smite: " 'Beltway Bandits,' profiteers who manipulate the power of big government on behalf of well-heeled people who pay them tons of money to do so." Those tons of Republican money were deposited in the favors bank of K Street, where, as The Washington Post reported this year, the number of lobbyists has more than doubled (to some 35,000) since the Bush era began in 2000. Conservatives who once aspired to cut government "down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub" - as a famous Norquist maxim had it - merely outsourced government instead to the highest bidder.

Mr. DeLay's latest plight is only a tiny detail within this vast Boschian canvas of depravity. If this were Watergate - and Watergate itself increasingly looks like a relatively contained epidemic of corruption - the Texas grand jury's indictment of the congressman and his associates would be a sideshow tantamount to the initial 1973 California grand jury indictment of the Nixon aide John Ehrlichman and his pals in the break-in at Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office; Watergate's real legal fireworks were still in the wings.

--snip--

The most important plot development of the past two weeks, in fact, has nothing to do with Mr. DeLay (as far as we know). It was instead the arrest of the administration's top procurement officer, David Safavian, on charges of lying and obstructing the investigation of Mr. Abramoff.
--snip--

The mother of all investigations, of course, remains the prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's pursuit of whoever outed the C.I.A. agent Valerie Wilson to Robert Novak and whoever may have lied to cover it up. The denouement is on its way.

--snip--

We have to hope that the law will get to the bottom of these cases and start to connect the recurring dots. But while everyone is innocent until proved guilty, the overall pattern stinks and has for a long time. It's so filthy that the Republican caucus couldn't even find someone clean to name as Mr. DeLay's "temporary" stand-in as House majority leader last week. As The Washington Post reported in 2003, Roy Blunt, the Missouri congressman who got the job, was found trying to alter a homeland security bill with a last-minute provision that would have benefited Philip Morris-brand cigarettes. Not only had the tobacco giant contributed royally to Mr. Blunt's various campaign coffers, but both the congressman's girlfriend (now wife) and his son were Philip Morris lobbyists at the time.

This is the culture that has given us the government we have. It's a government that has spent more of the taxpayers' money than any since L.B.J.'s (as calculated by the Cato Institute, a libertarian research institution), even as it rewards its benefactors with tax breaks and corporate pork. It's a government so used to lying that Mr. DeLay could say with a straight face that the cost of Katrina relief could not be offset by budget cuts because there was no governmental fat left to cut. It's the government that fostered the wholesale loss of American lives in both Iraq and on the Gulf Coast by putting cronyism above patriotism.

The courts can punish crooks, but they can't reform democracy from the ground up, and the voters can't get into the game until 2006. Meanwhile, on the Republican side, the key players both in the White House and in the leadership of both houses of Congress are either under investigation or joined at the hip to Messrs Rove, DeLay, Abramoff, Reed or Norquist. They seem to be hoping that some magical event - a sudden outbreak of peace and democracy in Iraq, the capture of Osama bin Laden, a hurricane affording better presidential photo ops than Rita - will turn things around. Dream on.

The one notable anomaly is John McCain, who retains a genuine hunger for reform, a rage at the corruption around him and the compelling motive of his presidential ambitions to push him forward; it's his Indian Affairs Committee, after all, that exposed the hideous Abramoff cesspool to public view last year. The Democrats, bereft of leadership and ideas (though not of their own Beltway bandits), also harbor a number of would-be presidents, but they are busier positioning themselves politically than they are articulating actual positions that might indicate what a new governmental order would look like. While the Republican revolution is dead, it says everything about the power vacuum left in its wake that Geena Davis's fictional commander in chief has more traction, as measured in Nielsen ratings and press, than any of the real-life contenders for that job in D.C.

Frank as always, Rich points out that it took no more than 5 years for the Republicans to achieve what it took a Democratic majority lock-out nearly 40 to accomplish.

Abject corruption. Time for another revolution.

The differences in how the Delay/corruption issues are reported inside the US as compared to outside the US.

"The K Street Project is little known outside the Washington beltway and its effectiveness as a political stratagem is only possible because of the unique importance of campaign finance to American politics. DeLay, together with Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum and some conservative activists, notably the ubiquitous Grover Norquist who runs the anti-state, anti-tax lobby group 'Americans for Tax Reform', conceived the notion 10 years ago that they should use the Republican majority in the House as a lever to ensure that the lobbyists, law firms and trade associations that inhabit Washington's K Street, heart of the industry, should only employ Republicans or sympathisers. To be a Democrat was to bear the mark of Cain; K Street was to be a Democrat-free zone."


Complete article here:
observer.guardian.co.uk...

One of the weakness about American is its “moral majority”, while moral authority, goes on public air they know how to target them, with their moral BS, including but not limited to. . . anti gay remarks, anti abortions rhetoric and now racial remarks.

It hits a point on the self appointed righteous and conservative America, you can see their influences in this boards every day in any anti gay or anti abortion thread and in every religious one.

While ignoring threads like this one that has to do with what is going on in our nation at a political level.

What all this has to do with politics, corruption and corporate greed, very simple even Religion in our country is a corporation, as long as the people is kept fired all up about the issues mentioned above, political leaders, religious corporate leaders along with the money only making corporate power is working out the country and profiting at the same time.

Frank as always, Rich points out that it took no more than 5 years for the Republicans to achieve what it took a Democratic majority lock-out nearly 40 to accomplish.

What we are forgetting is that for the last 8 years that the Democrats were in the white house the corporate power and corrupted politicians where selling themselves to the highest bidder as with DeLay they were able to buy out others and at the same time were planning the successful take over of the nation and the presidential seat of the white house.

This is not something that just happen Rant all this was in the planning for years.

What was their biggest mistake? Well when it comes to corruption and money making, you always going to have the ones that are not limited with a good portion of the profits they want it all.

Its human nature, and occurs we had the “Others” on the side watching their every move waiting for the fall out.

All this is just starting I bet is going to get very interesting in the coming months or years.

Meanwhile we have to watch out for the “Moral Majority” they are also working themselves out to hold to that power that they have been given a chance at again this time around since the Reagan years.

I can't wait to see what kind of crap they are ready to feed to their masses to kept everybody away from the real issues.

Originally posted by marg6043

Frank as always, Rich points out that it took no more than 5 years for the Republicans to achieve what it took a Democratic majority lock-out nearly 40 to accomplish.

What we are forgetting is that for the last 8 years that the Democrats were in the white house the corporate power and corrupted politicians where selling themselves to the highest bidder as with DeLay they were able to buy out others and at the same time were planning the successful take over of the nation and the presidential seat of the white house.

Well sure. The past five years they controlled everything was hardly their first taste of power since Nixon. Just "absolute power."

And Clinton, being "the best Republican President we ever had," was hardly a set back for any of them.

This is just the final death throes of the Nixon era. I hope. God, what more could they do? Start sacrifing virgins to the Reverend Moon in a giant volcano of money? I almost hate to give them ideas.



[edit on 2-10-2005 by RANT]

I got a nagging feeling that they will "Never" go away, the feeling of power is to over whelming, it blinds the mind.

Politics will never be the same.

When the poppet's that are now in power leaves. . . the poppet masters have already the successors, and they will care less how they will get elected.

Power is a blinding disease and greed is an addiction.

While I will certainly will keep my eyes and ears open for information on Abramoff, I just can't wait to see the future antics of "the Hammer", "Fristy" (Nickname used by President Bush), "the Brain" and "Scooter".

Sounds like Lord of the Flies, Gangsta style...

RANT, that picture creeps me out!

[edit on 2-10-2005 by Benevolent Heretic]

This guy seems to be in it up to his eyeballs. I had no idea.

On Other Abramoff News

a lot of people have been tying Abramoff to Atta based on the confirmed visit of 9/11 terrorists to Abramoff's SunCruz Casino, which made news last week because of the, also confirmed, NY mob involvement in the murder of one of it's owners
...

The big question here is: What are Christian politicians doing with people who think changing a company's management is a matter of.. calling in "Big Tony?" [from the Gambino family]
-ManCow on Delay / Abramoff's SunCruz problems

Lots of links in original story.

The big question here is: What are Christian politicians doing with people who think changing a company's management is a matter of.. calling in "Big Tony?" [from the Gambino family]
-ManCow on Delay / Abramoff's SunCruz problems

Remember "Christians only for the masses and supporters"

For anything else well. . .I leave that one to the imagination.

Troubled Waters
War, storms, leak probes—and a growing array of ethics clouds. Dark days for the Republican Party.
By Howard Fineman and Eleanor Clift
Newsweek

SNIPPETS: Reaching for inspiration, one [DeLay] acolyte compared the Speaker to Robert E. Lee and DeLay to Stonewall Jackson: when the latter was wounded, the former still won a crucial battle. But another member elicited wry laughter by pointing out that Jackson had been shot, accidentally, by his own troops. Some backbenchers were gloomy and resentful, but unwilling to say so on the record, for fear that the vindictive DeLay might survive. "Leadership has become ossified and hopelessly out of touch," lamented one such member. "They only care about one thing, hanging onto their own power. I'm not ready to take them on, at least not yet, not unless I have to!" [...]

Bush and his fellow Republicans have little margin for error. Three forces--sky-high gasoline prices, the massive costs of rebuilding the Gulf Coast and ever-gloomier public assessments of the war in Iraq--have combined to weaken Bush's reputation as a strong leader, and leave him vulnerable to the kind of second-term fiascoes that tend to befall all presidents: think Ronald Reagan and Iran-contra, or Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. Indeed, polltaker Frank Luntz, who helped develop the "Contract With America" message that swept Republicans to power in 1994, was on the Hill last week warning the party faithful that they could lose both the House and the Senate in next year's congressional elections.

The Republicans' power outage is real--and the historical irony is as vast as Texas. Beginning in the 1950s, the Democratic Party of Texans Lyndon Johnson and Sam Rayburn built a congressional machine of unrivaled power. But starting in the '80s, led by a firebrand named Newt Gingrich, Republicans led a revolt from below in the name of smaller government and an ethically cleansed Congress. In 1989 Newt & Co. forced out Democratic Speaker Jim Wright--a Texan, too, who resigned over charges that he profited improperly from book sales--and five years later the GOP took control of the House after a Biblical 40 years in the wilderness. But it took the Republicans only 10 years to become yet another ruling party beset by charges of profligate spending, bloated government and corruption--a party led by two Texans, Bush and DeLay, who don't particularly care whether they are beloved outside their inner circle. To paraphrase David Mamet, the Republicans became what they beheld.

www.msnbc.msn.com...

This is key.

Indeed, polltaker Frank Luntz, who helped develop the "Contract With America" message that swept Republicans to power in 1994, was on the Hill last week warning the party faithful that they could lose both the House and the Senate in next year's congressional elections.

If Rove is Bush's brain, the even wormier Luntz (responsible for inventing every manufactured # storm the past 10 years from "partial birth" abortions to "same sex" marriage) is Rove's brain.

And he's smelling the end of his own stink.




[edit on 2-10-2005 by RANT]

I cannot stomach any more talk about Rove-stink.

Newsweek, huh? I just happened to catch Dave Chappelle last night talking about how when white people see something in NewsWeek, that's when they know it's true.

As regards losing the house and senate, I'll be doing my part...

Rant, this quote here tells exactly what is going on with the Republican party right now.

"Leadership has become ossified and hopelessly out of touch," lamented one such member. "They only care about one thing, hanging onto their own power. I'm not ready to take them on, at least not yet, not unless I have to!"

In order for them to get to power they enlisted to many "house help" and they sold their souls to the higher bidder.

The smell and feel of power numbed their senses and their leaders in their euphoria lost track of their "benefactors".

When the fight for the leadership started I knew that sooner or later they will start to fight each other.

Corruption is what we see now as the result.

Look at Cheney. . . he should be arrested along with his staff and charge with treason after the developments with Lewis Libby.

But is that going to happen? no, the news now are focus on DeLay, Brown, Frist and Bennett.





[edit on 2-10-2005 by marg6043]

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
I cannot stomach any more talk about Rove-stink.

Rove Perp Walk Watch Heats Up as Attorney Changes Tune

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The federal prosecutor investigating who leaked the identity of a CIA operative is expected to signal within days whether he intends to bring indictments in the case, legal sources close to the investigation said on Wednesday.

As a first step, prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was expected to notify officials by letter if they have become targets, said the lawyers, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Fitzgerald could announce plea agreements, bring indictments, or conclude that no crime was committed. By the end of this month he is expected to wrap up his nearly two-year-old investigation into who leaked CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity.

The inquiry has ensnared President George W. Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, and Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby. The White House had long maintained that Rove and Libby had nothing to do with the leak but reporters have since named them as sources.

Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, declined to say whether his client had been contacted by Fitzgerald. In the past, Luskin has said that Rove was assured that he was not a target.

Libby's lawyer was not immediately available to comment.

Of course, it's getting difficult to watch a man the White House is hiding.

And this is just poetic...

Delay Successor BLUNT Ensnared in Money Laundering Allegations

Blunt last week temporarily replaced DeLay as House majority leader, and Blunt's son, Matt, has now risen to Missouri's governor.

The government's former chief election enforcement lawyer said the Blunt and DeLay transactions are similar to the Texas case and raise questions that should be investigated regarding whether donors were deceived or the true destination of their money was concealed.

"These people clearly like using middlemen for their transactions," said Lawrence Noble. "It seems to be a pattern with DeLay funneling money to different groups, at least to obscure, if not cover, the original source," said Noble, who was the Federal Election Commission's chief lawyer for 13 years, including in 2000 when the transactions occurred.

And cronyism questions on Blunt's SON's out of state fund raising schemes have arisen as well.