EDITORIALS REGARDING CORRUPTION IN
THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION
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A Criminal Administration
by Paul Craig Roberts
Caught in gratuitous and illegal spying on American citizens, the Bush administration
has defended its illegal activity and set the Justice (sic) Department on the trail of the
person or persons who informed the New York Times of Bush’s violation of law. Note
the astounding paradox: The Bush administration is caught red-handed in blatant
illegality and responds by trying to arrest the patriot who exposed the administration’s
illegal behavior.
Bush has actually declared it treasonous to reveal his illegal behavior! His propagandists,
who masquerade as news organizations, have taken up the line: To reveal wrong-doing
by the Bush administration is to give aid and comfort to the enemy.
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By Jennifer James, Yale Daily News
Posted on December 26, 2006, Printed on December 26, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/45288/
Exit polls conducted by six major television networks and news services on Election
Day this year showed that over 40 percent of people described corruption as an
"extremely important" issue in determining who they voted for. It beat out things
like terrorism, the economy and the war in Iraq. This shocked many people
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Abramoff-Not Bipartisan
By PAUL KRUGMAN
January 30, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist-New York Times
"How does one report the facts," asked Rob Corddry on "The Daily Show," "when
the facts themselves are biased?" He explained to Jon Stewart, who played straight
man, that "facts in Iraq have an anti-Bush agenda," and therefore can't be reported.
Mr. Cordry's parody of journalists who believe they must be "balanced" even when
the truth isn't balanced continues, alas, to ring true. The most recent example is the
peculiar determination of some news organizations to cast the scandal surrounding
Jack Abramoff as "bipartisan."
Let's review who Mr. Abramoff is and what he did.
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Jack Abramoff's Cesspool of Corruption
Posted on Wednesday, January 04 @ 09:53:52 EST
Robert Scheer, Truthdig
Top Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff is set to sing, and his long list of former buddies
in Congress and the Bush Administration are quaking in anticipation of possible indictments
stemming from the consummate Beltway hustler's crass reign as the king of K Street.
"Casino Jack," a former head of the College Republicans and a "Pioneer"-grade fundraiser
for the Bush 2000 campaign, pleaded guilty to three felony counts of conspiracy, mail fraud
and tax evasion in D.C. yesterday and is set to appear in Florida today to plead guilty to fraud
and conspiracy on separate charges. Abramoff and other defendants also must repay over $25
million to defrauded clients and $1.7 million to the IRS.
But most important for the nation is that Abramoff is now detailing the massive web of corruption
he spun inside the Beltway which has already snared a top Bush official, procurement chief
David H. Safavian, on charges of lying and obstructing a criminal investigation, and reportedly
threatens dozens of other D.C. players.
"When this is all over, this will be bigger than any [government scandal] in the last 50 years,
both in the amount of people involved and the breadth to it," Stan Brand, a former U.S. House
counsel who specializes in representing public officials accused of wrongdoing, told Bloomberg
News. "It will include high-ranking members of Congress and executive branch officials."
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'When criminals rule and what we must do about it'
Posted on Monday, December 05 @ 09:44:33 EST
Jack Dalton
"Those who believe a police state can't happen here are poor students of history.
Every government, democratic or not, is capable of tyranny. We must understand this
if we hope to remain a free people."
-- Rep Ron Paul, R-TX
There is a lot of political rhetoric coming from the Democratic Party about the
"culture of corruption" within the Republicans in congress and the White House.
While there is a culture of corruption within the Republican Party, the Democratic
Party has absolutely nothing to hoot about! They have been at the "feed trough"
for as long as the Republicans. One party with two different names the way I see
it. Just the investigation on and around Jack Abramoff is in itself enough to confirm
that. Mostly congressional Republicans were on his "payroll" but Democrats are in the mix as well.
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Bush nominates another crony
From Capitol Hill Blue
By The Providence Journal
Nov 14, 2005
One would think that the problems surrounding Michael Brown -- the
Arabian-horse promoter who was made director of the Federal Emergency
Management Agency -- would have tempered President Bush's appetite for
giving important government jobs to people whose chief qualifications are
being good buddies, political supporters or just relatives of the president's.
But cronyism and nepotism seem to be thriving in Washington.
Consider Ellen Sauerbrey, whom the administration has nominated to head
the U.S. State Department Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration.
The bureau coordinates the American response to migration problems caused
by war and natural disasters. It also works with international groups on population
and reproductive-health issues. Its annual budget exceeds $700 million.
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Bush money network rooted in Florida, Texas
By STEVE EDER AND JIM DREW
BLADE STAFF WRITERS
DALLAS - Long before George W. Bush began campaigning for the White
House, his family built a fund-raising network of wealthy supporters
to bankroll his political ambitions and propel him to the presidency.
The network - including oilmen, lobbyists, developers, and
agricultural executives - became accustomed to the Bush family's
style of government, with George W. Bush as governor of Texas and
brother Jeb Bush as governor of Florida.
The political financiers made an investment in the Bush family, an
investment that paid off.
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SCALIA WRONG TWICE LAST WEEK ABOUT
BUSH V. GORE--THE ANOINTING OF A PRESIDENT
Antonin Scalia, the leading conservative on the Supreme Court, has demonstrated
once again that he is not a brilliant intellectual but rather a partisan loyalist hack. In
two statements last week regarding the shameful 5 to 4 decision in Bush v. Gore decision,
he revised history.
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'Coverup got Bush team past '04 election'
Posted on Thursday, November 03 @ 10:01:14 EST
E.J. Dionne Jr., Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN)
WASHINGTON - Has anyone noticed that the coverup worked?
In his impressive presentation of the indictment of I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby last week,
Patrick Fitzgerald expressed the wish that witnesses had testified when subpoenas were
issued in August 2004, and "we would have been here in October 2004 instead of October 2005."
Note the significance of the two dates: October 2004, before President Bush was re-elected,
and October 2005, after the president was re-elected. Those dates make clear why Libby
threw sand in the eyes of prosecutors, in the special counsel's apt metaphor, and helped drag
this investigation on.
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'A deep look at corruption culture'
Date: Monday, October 17 @ 10:01:13 EDT
Topic: Republicans
Stephen Crockett and Al Lawrence
Recent events have shown that a corruption culture has taken hold of the dominant corporate business community and their allies in American
politics. The corruption culture threatens both our economic way of life and
American Democracy.
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It appears to have been a rough week for the Republican Party, with DeLay's indictment, Miller talking, Larry Franklin's plea bargain, the forcing of the release of the worst of the Abu Ghraib photos, more revelations on the Abramoff and Safavian scandals, continued fallout from the debacle of the non-response to Katrina, more problems in Iraq, and on and on. People are starting to notice a pattern.
As the American public s-l-o-w-l-y wakes up to the fact that their government is being run solely for the purposes of thievery, there is not a damn thing they can do about it. That's because the first thing the Republicans stole was the voting system itself.
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