The Republicans seem to enjoy adding more fuel to the fire that will consume them November 7th, as two more Candidates are added to the mounting number of scandals in Washington.
The spreading web of Republican law breaking has begun to influence various election races around the nation. If votes get counted properly in 2006, the Republican Party is in very serious trouble nationally.
Progress Report:
Under the Radar
ETHICS -- CONGRESSMAN UNDER CORRUPTION PROBE CARRIES OUT MASS FIRING OF INVESTIGATIVE STAFF: Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA), chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, abruptly "dismissed most of the panel's team of waste and fraud investigators this week, firing about 60 contractors who had been examining federal spending related to Hurricane Katrina, the Iraq war and other programs." The investigators, who were "brought on to handle the extraordinary level of fraud investigations facing the panel," said they were told "not to come to work on Oct. 17 and that they had a week to turn in their congressional ID badges and collect their belongings." "This eviscerates the investigatory function. There is little if any ability to do any oversight now," said one of the investigators, a former FBI agent. "This staff has saved billions and billions of dollars, we've turned up malfeasance and misfeasance. Its results justify the expense of the staff. I have no idea why the chairman would do this." Lewis is currently under federal investigation over corruption charges reportedly uncovered during the Duke Cunningham investigation. He has spent nearly $800,000 in legal fees since May to defend himself against the probe
CIVIL RIGHTS -- CONSERVATIVE CANDIDATE BEHIND VOTER SUPPRESSION LETTER VOWS TO STAY IN RACE: Orange Country congressional candidate Tan D. Nguyen (R) was asked to withdraw from the race Thursday "after he acknowledged that his campaign was involved in sending out a letter intended to scare off Latino voters." The letter, written in Spanish and mailed to 14,000 Democratic Latino voters, falsely stated that immigrants could be arrested and face deportation if they tried to vote in the Nov. 7 election. Twenty-two organizations have written to U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and requested a federal investigation into the Orange County voter suppression. California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson has already called for an investigation into the mailing, which may have violated the Voting Rights Act. Nguyen denies being "personally involved in sending the letter," but believes a staff member might have "used his voter database to send out the letter without his knowledge." The staff member has since been fired. But after speaking with the state attorney general and the private company that distributed the letter, local party chairman Scott Baugh concluded "that not only was Mr. Nguyen's campaign involved in this, but that Mr. Nguyen was personally involved in expediting the mailer." Despite a formal request from his party to leave the race, Nguyen "has no intention of dropping out of the race."
Scandals in the making or already made:
President Bush's "recess-appointed former coal industry executive Richard Stickler to head the Mine Safety and Health Administration..." The Senate twice refused to confirm him because "the mines he managed from 1989 to 1996 incurred injury rates double the national average..."
In trying to implement the new Military Commissions Act, the Bush administration ignores the constitutional separation of powers by having "formally notified the U.S. District Court here that it no longer has jurisdiction to consider hundreds of habeas corpus petitions filed by inmates at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba..."
Congressman "Duke" Cunningham in California and Ohio Governor Taft criminal charges.
Congressman Jerry Lewis of California to Montana US Senator Conrad Burns to Alabama Governor Bob Riley seem to be very deeply implicated in or connected to the Abramhoff corruption scandals. Abramhoff had great influence in Republican circles and basically none among elected Democrats. His scam was a Republican operation in every important detail.
Abramhoff was closely connected to Bush and Cheney. His operation reached deeply into the Bush White House. He was no stranger to Pennsylvania Avenue during the time frame of the scandals.
Illegal wiretapping already has the Bush Republicans deeply worried. The Abramhoff scandal seems to be even more potentially damaging to Bush Republicans. It is important to note that the investigations of the outing of Valerie Palme as a covert CIA agent has not been completed. The possibilities of charges being filed against Karl Rove or Vice President Dick Cheney remain. Impeachment has become a mainstream political discussion not outside the realm of possibility in 2006 and 2007.
From state to state, election fraud issues are starting to take hold. The controversies range from Republican primaries in Arizona to the Presidential vote count in Alaska. Electronic voting machine issues are gaining attention. Citizens are demanding a look at the internal procedures and mechanics of the Republican connected voting machine companies like ES&S and Diebold. Every look at these issues seems to show fraud, bias or incompetence that has been benefiting almost exclusively Bush Republican candidates.
Mary Shaw is a Philadelphia-based writer and activist Wrote. An article from The Nation tells us that "[t]he US-backed special tribunal in Baghdad signalled Monday that it will likely delay a verdict in the first trial of Saddam Hussein to November 5." How convenient. The article goes on to ask, "Why hasn't the mainstream media connected the dots between the Saddam's judgment day and the midterm elections?" Saddam will surely be found guilty, and will likely get the death penalty. Will that influence the American voters when they head to the polls two days later? And is the average American voter stupid enough to be swayed by something like this? (The latter, of course, is a rhetorical question.) Karl Rove couldn't have done better himself. Or did he?
by Bob Burnett. George Bush has lost the trust of the American people. We only have to look at the woeful record of his Administration: failure to protect the nation; failure to help average Americans; and failure to address major national problems, among other shortcomings. As fresh evidence emerges, it's clear that in the period prior to 9/11 the President and his advisers did not take seriously warnings of an attack by Al Qaeda. It's also apparent the war in Iraq was an epoch miscalculation, a blunder that made America less safe by fueling the flames of terrorism. Indeed, it is difficult to think of any area of foreign policy where the Bush Administration has been successful. National security is hardly their strong suit.
Excerpted from: http://www.rawstory.com
CONGRESSWOMAN ON PAGE BOARD BURIED FILE ON HUSBAND'S
ABUSE ALLEGATION ... Brian Beutler
A file allegedly suppressed by Congresswoman Heather Wilson (R-NM) has been obtained by RAW STORY.
In 1995, just three days into her tenure as Secretary of the New Mexico Children,
Youth and Families Department, Wilson removed a routine working file alleging that her husband had engaged in inappropriate contact with a minor. The file was then transferred to the department's attorney in her own Albuquerque office, where it soon went missing. ....snip... More than ten years later, RAW STORY has uncovered and confirmed the authenticity of the police incident report believed to be contained in the missing dossier. Filed as a case of child abuse in 1993, it contends that Wilson's husband Jay Hone, an Albuquerque attorney, touched a then-16 year old boy "in a manner that was not welcome."
Charges were never filed against her husband, but Wilson's handling of the affair drew
the ire of Bob Schwartz who at the time served as district attorney in Bernalillo County. He described Wilson's actions to the news team as "absolutely inappropriate," citing her "obvious conflict of interest." He also admonished Wilson for not following official procedure for the removal of official documents. "If this file is behind Secretary Wilson's desk," Schwartz said, "then she shouldn't be behind this desk anymore. She should resign."
http://www.rawstory.com/...
By Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone says:
These past six years were more than just the most shameful, corrupt and incompetent period in the history of the American legislative branch. These were the years when the US parliament became a historical punch line, a political obscenity on par with the court of Nero or Caligula - a stable of thieves and perverts who committed crimes rolling out of bed in the morning and did their very best to turn the mighty American empire into a debt-laden, despotic backwater, a Burkina Faso with cable.
The Republicans who control this Congress are revolutionaries, and they have brought their revolutionary vision for the House and Senate quite unpleasantly to fruition. In the past six years they have castrated the political minority, abdicated their oversight responsibilities mandated by the Constitution, enacted a conscious policy of massive borrowing and unrestrained spending, and installed a host of semi-permanent mechanisms for transferring legislative power to commercial interests. They aimed far lower than any other Congress has ever aimed, and they nailed their target.
"The 109th Congress is so bad that it makes you wonder if democracy is a failed experiment," says Jonathan Turley, a noted constitutional scholar and the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington Law School. "I think that if the Framers went to Capitol Hill today, it would shake their confidence in the system they created. Congress has become an exercise of raw power with no principles - and in that environment corruption has flourished. The Republicans in Congress decided from the outset that their future would be inextricably tied to George Bush and his policies. It has become this sad session of members sitting down and drinking Kool-Aid delivered by Karl Rove. Congress became a mere extension of the White House."
The end result is a Congress that has hijacked the national treasury, frantically ceded power to the executive, and sold off the federal government in a private auction. It all happened before our very eyes.
Closed rules, shipwrecked bills, secret negotiations, one-vote victories. The result of all this is a Congress where there is little or no open debate and virtually no votes are left to chance; all the important decisions are made in backroom deals, and what you see on C-Span is just empty theater, the world's most expensive trained-dolphin act. The constant here is a political strategy of conducting congressional business with as little outside input as possible, rejecting the essentially conservative tradition of rule-by-consensus in favor of a more revolutionary strategy of rule by cabal.
Matt's full story is here: http://www.truthout.org/...
The constitution is very clear on the responsibility of Congress to serve as a check on the excesses of the executive branch. The House and Senate, after all, are supposed to pass all laws - the president is simply supposed to execute them. The Republican-controlled Congress has created a new standard for the use of oversight powers. That standard seems to be that when a Democratic president is in power, there are no matters too stupid or meaningless to be investigated fully - but when George Bush is president, no evidence of corruption or incompetence is shocking enough to warrant congressional attention.
When Bill Clinton left office, the nation had a budget surplus of $236 billion. Today, thanks to Congress, the budget is $296 billion in the hole. This year, more than sixty-five percent of all the money borrowed in the entire world will be borrowed by America, a statistic fueled by the speed-junkie spending habits of our supposedly "fiscally conservative" Congress. It took forty-two presidents before George W. Bush to borrow $1 trillion; under Bush, Congress has more than doubled that number in six years.
A federal judge has ordered the Bush administration to release information about who visited Vice President Dick Cheney's office and personal residence, an order that could spark a late election season debate over lobbyists' White House access.
The Washington Post asked for two years of White House visitor logs in June but the Secret Service refused to process the request. Government attorneys called it "a fishing expedition into the most sensitive details of the vice presidency."
US District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina ruled Wednesday that, by the end of next week, the Secret Service must produce the records or at least identity them and justify why they are being withheld.
Representative Bob Ney is headed to prison early next year after pleading guilty to charges of accepting tens of thousands of dollars in illegal gifts from lobbyists. Until then, Mr. Ney, a six-term Republican from Ohio, has a comfortable place to bide his time.
Arrgh.... What was I talking about, oh yes scandals, least we forget the Foley-Hastert-Shimkus House Page scandal, investigation is on going, with Republicans doing their best to thwart the FBI and Congress investigations, attempting to narrow the investigations to single email that wasn't damaging, it sure will be enlightening when the testimony of those called before the committee is made public.... But you can bet it won't be before the election.
As November 7th draws near, we'll read a lot about the issues. Hear they're likely to be: Iraq, national security, healthcare, immigration, and gasoline prices, among others. But, in reality, there's only one issue: Do you trust the Republicans?
Quote of the Day By Joe Kogel
"The worst thing in your life may contain seeds of the best. When you can see crisis as an opportunity, your life becomes not easier, but more satisfying."
The Republicans awash in crisis, WeDemocrats see opportunity!
Votes for Sale?
http://www.truthout.org/...
Airing less than three weeks before Americans go to the polls, "Votes for Sale?" will spotlight the so-called Clean Elections movement, a radical experiment adopted in Maine and Arizona to revolutionize how campaigns are conducted. It may not only help clean up politics, but also open the door for more average Americans to run for office and win. This time on NOW.
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Well Reuben WeDemocrats are changing that informing and educating society that they can once again take back this country. Ignorance is still rampant, but it is centered in the Republican Controlled Washington.
Fight Back, Take Back, Roll Back the ridiculous laws that have enriched the Republicans and their Corporate supporters.
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