The Hollywood Liberal

Wolfowitz Backed Friend for Iraq Contract in ’03

NY Times
Excerpt
WASHINGTON, April 19 — Paul D. Wolfowitz, while serving as deputy secretary of defense, personally recommended that his companion, Shaha Ali Riza, be awarded a contract for travel to Iraq in 2003 to advise on setting up a new government, says a previously undisclosed inquiry by the Pentagon’s inspector general.

The inquiry, as described by a senior Pentagon official, concluded that there was no wrongdoing in Mr. Wolfowitz’s role in the hiring of Ms. Riza by the Science Applications International Corporation, a Pentagon contractor, because Ms. Riza had the expertise required to advise on the role of women in Islamic countries.

Mr. Wolfowitz’s office said it could not comment on the latest disclosure. Ms. Riza’s lawyer, Victoria Toensing, did not respond to a request for a comment.

The disclosure of Mr. Wolfowitz’s role in Ms. Riza’s contract in 2003 provides a new indication of his involvement in her employment, at a time when the World Bank’s board is investigating his role in arranging for a large salary increase, a promotion and a transfer for Ms. Riza when he came to the bank in 2005.

The disclosure also came on a day of swirling pressure at the bank, where the 24-member executive board met into the evening to discuss the situation amid mounting calls for Mr. Wolfowitz’s resignation.

Bank officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were divulging proceedings that were not supposed to be made public, reported that the rift between employees and the president had become a major distraction from their work, with some employees wearing blue ribbons in a display of defiance against his leadership.

“People feel paralyzed,” one official said. “No one is doing any work at all. This genie can never go back to the bottle.”

HLs TakeLooks like Wolfie is on his last legs. Of course as long as Bush has anything to say about it he’s got a job for life.

You just know the people that answered the political questions voted for Bush, each and every one. These are the people that keep our country in the chaos it is in right now.

SCOOP: US Attorney for Delaware is being replaced?

Daily Kos
Excerpt
No one else has this story. The US Attorney for the District of Delaware, Colm F. Connolly, is being replaced by Keith M. Rosen, an attorney from the New York office of Chadbourne & Parke LLP.

In light of Gonzogate, one has to consider what the real reasons for the replacement are. And, again, one has to wonder why there are no press releases or public announcements of this replacement. I discovered it purely by accident.

This diary is short at the moment, but, I will be updating it throughout the day with details of the former and future US Attorney for Delaware. It may simply be that Karl Rove is positioning Connolly to run against Joseph Biden. Who knows? If anyone has ideas, please comment.

I. Introduction

While reading the recent court documents filed in the US v Rosen AIPAC spy case, one of the defense attorneys, Abbe Lowell, said something that caught my eye. It was a hearing before Judge Ellis, and is customary, the names of each of the attorneys present is made part of the transcript by each identifying him or herself.

Gonzales seeks GOP support - gets little

AP
Excerpt
WASHINGTON - Desperate for support among fellow Republicans, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales faced grim prospects Friday after a bruising Senate hearing that produced one outright call for resignation and a fistful of invitations and hints to quit.

There were fresh calls from Democrats for Gonzales to step down. “The president should restore credibility to the office of the attorney general. Alberto Gonzales must resign,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record) of California.

Gonzales and other administration officials had hoped his appearance Thursday would produce a groundswell of support among Republicans, but there was little if any evidence of that.

Alone among the nine Republicans on the committee, Sen. Tom Coburn (news, bio, voting record) of Oklahoma called for Gonzales to resign.

Several other Republicans made plain their unhappiness.

Specter told Gonzales his description of events was “significantly if not totally at variance with the facts.”

“Why is your story changing?” Charles Grassley (news, bio, voting record) of Iowa asked at one point, citing differences between an earlier explanation and the hearing testimony.

Lindsey Graham (news, bio, voting record) of South Carolina, after hearing the attorney general’s account of the case, said, “Most of this is a stretch,” and added it seemed to him that some of those dismissed “just had personality conflicts with people in your office or the White House and (officials) just made up reasons to fire them.”

Sen. Jeff Sessions (news, bio, voting record) of Alabama expressed concern with Gonzales’ memory at the hearing. In an interview later, he went further. “I think it’s going to be difficult for him to be an effective leader,” he said.

HLs Take
Of course Bush still behind him. Because for Bush to call for Gonzalez to step down would mean that Bush would have to admit he made a mistake by putting old torture boy in there in the first place, and in Bush’s mind he has never made a mistake. He even said so one time when he couldn’t come up with a single thing he would have done differently during his Presidency given the chance. Besides Bush loves Torture and murder almost as much as Torture Boy. They are Sicko’s on a mission, and no amount of reason will make them see the light.

That senile old fool. When asked what we should do about Iran he breaks into song. That tired old ditty “Bomb Iran” to the tune of “Barbara Ann” that I remember hearing back in ‘79. Mccain must think he is one of The Beach Boys, except he’s far crazier then Brian Wilson ever was. This guy wants to be President. He’ll make Bush look like an efficient manager of the nation by comparison. Hey John, instead of running for President (which you have 0 chance of winning, maybe it’s time to retire to Florida or somthing. Check out the crooning of McCain

The HL is proud to welcome a new advertiser. It is Politico.com
Politico is a great Political blog with lots of links and stories. They have rundowns of all the candidates that are running for the Presidency, and lots of new stories each day. Also Politico.com readers will decide the questions our reporters ask at the May 3rd Republican presidential debate, televised live on MSNBC. Click Through to Submit Your Question
Should be interesting to hear them defend Bush, Torture Boy, and Wolfowitz, not to mention their plans to extend the wars forever. HLs advertisers keep the site going to go on over and have a look. Thank You.

GOP Funk: Top Dems Have Twice As Many Donors

Politico.com
Excerpt
From Congress to the presidential campaign, Republican fund raising is lagging while Democratic donations are surging.

Yet beneath the record-breaking million-dollar totals lies another statistic that could be more ominous in 2008 for Republicans: a yawning gap between the presidential primary fields’ donor bases. According to campaign figures, the Democrats’ top three candidates received donations from about 204,000 individuals. The first-tier Republican trio drew checks from 110,000, roughly half as many. That donor disparity helped give the Democrats a big first-quarter financial advantage.

The Democrats’ top three candidates reported having $61 million in cash at the end of the quarter, compared with $29 million posted by the top Republicans. Of the nine presidential hopefuls who raised more than $1 million, six are Democrats, compared with three Republicans. Two of the Democrats’ second-tier candidates — New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd — matched or beat the quarter-end cash balance of the Republican front-runner, Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

HLs Take
The Dems are getting way more donation because people have realized that Republicans only care about war, and more profit for themselves and their business cronies, and screw the people. At this point I would say that no republican has a chance to win the presidency. America will be a lot better off for it. Maybe this time people won’t forget the peace and prosperity of The Clinton administration to vote for the war mongerers as they did last time due to media manipulation on an unimportant matter that had nothing to do with governing.

Bubble People and the Faith-Based Market. Trouble in Squanderville

Counterpunch
Excerpt
Two years ago, anyone who wrote about the housing bubble was dismissed as a conspiracy nut. Now hardly a day goes by that the headlines aren’t splattered with the details of the massive meltdown in the real estate market.
What changed? The facts are essentially the same today as they were back then. In fact, the “Economist”–as well as many independent journalists–had already shown that the Fed’s low interest rates had inflated the biggest equity bubble in history which could potentially bring down the entire economy.
Now, all of a sudden, the media is acting as if the problem sprouted up overnight?
Why?
The notion that the media was unaware of what was going on is ridiculous. The business pages in America’s newspapers are written by some of the country’s “best and brightest”; most of them have MBAs which they earned at our finest universities.
Is it possible that they were oblivious to the trillions of dollars that were funneled into the real estate market to unqualified loan applicants? Or that they didn’t know that the rising prices had no relation GDP, increases in wages or productivity.
Is it possible that some of our best educated business prognosticators don’t understand the effects of low interest rates or the speculative bubbles they naturally create?
It’s simply not possible—-the effects of interest rates are the first thing that one learns in Econ 101.

HLs Take
About 3-4 years ago I was looking at houses in the ridiculously overpriced Southern California market. Back then Houses would go on sale on Monday, and be sold on Wednesday for considerably more then the original asking price. I quickly realized I had no chance of affording one, so I stayed in my apartment. Little did I realize at the time that the market was being glutted by people who had no business buying a house but did anyway through the subprime market. Prices were skyrocketing so fast it made your head spin. I have to put some of the blame for that on the people who are now going into default because their higher interest rates are kicking in and now they can’t afford the payments. How do you get into such a huge commitment without reading the fine print? Of course the government and lenders know that a lot of people are that negligent, and pumped up the market to people that couldn’t afford it so they could all make their commissions and worry about the rest later. Kind of like the way the Bush administration operates. Now houses are staying on the market for 6 months or more but owners have not yet lowered their asking prices because they hope somehow the market will rebound. Soon enough they won’t be able to hold on any longer, then look out below. Excellent article by Mike Whitney, click through and read the whole thing

Convention plan includes preparing for 3,000 arrests

Minneapolis Star Tribune
Arrestees at NYC Convention in 2004. HL in There Somewhere
Excerpt:About $550,000 for a possible open-air, fenced detention facility to hold protesters next to the Ramsey County Workhouse; $1.7 million for overtime, and $62,000 for biohazard decontamination equipment….
These are among the items included in a $4.4 million budget proposal by Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher, who was told by St. Paul police to plan for 3,000 arrests during the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul.

The idea of developing a plan for 3,000 arrests drew sharp criticism this week from the American Civil Liberties Union in Minnesota, which said it was far too high and represented an overreaction by authorities.
Also included in the projected expenses is $350,000 in riot equipment and Tasers to control protesters engaged in civil disobedience….

The county thinks St. Paul will agree to cover the costs through a $50 million appropriation expected from Congress to cover convention security.
Charles Samuelson, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota, said the Republican Convention in New York drew hundreds of thousands of demonstrators, far more than are predicted for St. Paul in 2008, yet New York had fewer arrests than St. Paul is planning for.

While it has not been decided, the Sheriff’s Office is considering transporting arrested protesters to a fenced field with tents and temporary cooling units next to the workhouse. He said he expected most protesters would be released in two to four hours.
“I hope it is a nice warm, dry day,” Samuelson said. “Otherwise, because of the lawsuits, this could be the most expensive thing they do, if it doesn’t work right.”
Told about the possible open-air detention facility, Mary Beaudoin, director of Women Against Military Madness, a local protest group, said, “It’s hideous, it’s terrifying. Are they going to have us wear orange jumpsuits and hoods, too? It sounds like Guantanamo Bay

HLs Take
Guantanamo Bay indeed. Last time it was Guantanamo on The Hudson. If you are planning to go to the convention to protest Bush, and the republicans be prepared to be arrested because you will. Arrested for excersizing your constitutional rights to peaceful protest. Not only that they are using your money to do it with. Congress is to appropriate $50 Million of your money to arrest you for doing what the constitution says you can do. Is this a great country or what. Longtime readers of this site know that I went through the same BS in New York in ‘04. They are going to try to use the lessons of NYC to prevent as many lawsuits as possible, but if it don’t work out the Republican National Committee will bail them out. Its worth all the money to them not to have their facisim exposed more then it already is.

Articles of Impeachment To Be Filed On Cheney

Washinton Post
Excerpt:
Looks like he’s reached his boiling point.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), the most liberal of the Democratic presidential candidates in the primary field, declared in a letter sent to his Democratic House colleagues this morning that he plans to file articles of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney.
Kucinich has made ending the war in Iraq the central theme of his campaign. He has even taken aim at the leading Democratic presidential candidates in the field for their votes on authorizing the war.
Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution gives Congress the authority to impeach the president, vice president and “all civil Officers of the United States” for “treason, bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

HLs Take
This is why I am voting for Dennis in the primaries, and why you should too. He is the one who is doing the most to try to end the corruption, of the Bush/Cheney regime. Not just playing lip service.

Here is our latest Video Blog for NBC News Raw. Every week we do a recorded news show for NBC News Raw, this week we discuss Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Torture Boy Gonzalez and more. The show is 12 minutes this week, and is in 2 parts. Check out HLTV’s HL News.

Bush Prods Congress on Iraq

AP
Excerpt:
WASHINGTON - Deadlocked with Congress over Iraq, President Bush begins the week with a message that some good might come from sitting down with his Democratic adversaries. His vice president’s view is more antagonistic: Democrats will ultimately cave.

Dick Cheney says he is “willing to bet” that Democratic lawmakers will back down and approve a war-spending bill that doesn’t call for U.S. troops to leave Iraq. Top Democratic leaders shot back that Cheney has lost all public credibility.

In an interview broadcast Sunday, Cheney predicted Congress will end up passing a “clean” bill that funds the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan without any troop withdrawal timetables. Democrats do not appear to have the votes to override a presidential veto.

“They will not leave the troops in the field without the resources they need,” Cheney said of the Democrats.

Asked what would happen if they don’t back down, Cheney said, “I’m willing to bet the other way — that, in fact, they will.”

“There may be some people who are so irresponsible that they wouldn’t support that,” Cheney said. But the majority will send Bush the bill he wants “once they’ve gone through the exercise and it’s clear the president will veto the provisions that they want in,” he said.

However, the Senate Armed Services Committee’s chairman said Congress won’t relent in winding down the war.

If Bush vetoes a bill calling for troop reductions, Democratic lawmakers would probably come back with a second try that requires the Iraqi government to meet performance benchmarks or face consequences, said Sen. Carl Levin (news, bio, voting record), D-Mich. Iraq’s leadership is struggling to make the progress it has promised on political reconciliation, distribution of the country’s oil wealth and other vital goals.

“We are very, very serious about what the American people said in November,” Levin said, referring to the election that put Democrats in charge of Congress. “They want a change of course.”

Cheney’s blistering criticism of Democrats, the latest in a series of recent speeches and interviews, drew harsh words from Levin.

“He has misled the people consistently on Iraq,” Levin said. “He has misstated. He has exaggerated. And I don’t think he has any credibility left with the American people.”

Cheney hasn’t called Libby since trial

AP
Excerpt:
WASHINGTON - In the nearly six weeks since his close friend and former chief of staff was convicted of lying and obstructing an investigation, Vice President Dick Cheney has not once spoken to I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby.

Why?

“Well, there hasn’t been occasion to do so,” Cheney said in an interview broadcast Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

President Bush and Cheney have expressed sadness for Libby and his family, but largely refrained from comment because the matter is an active legal case. Libby plans to appeal.

In the interview, Cheney said he believes deeply in Libby.

“He’s one of the most dedicated public servants I’ve ever worked with, and I think this is a great tragedy,” Cheney said.

Yet Cheney has not spoken with Libby to tell him so directly.

Cheney’s interviewer, Bob Schieffer, was so surprised to hear that news that he asked the vice president about it again.

Why not calls to express your regrets?

“I just — I haven’t had occasion to do that,” was all that Cheney would say.

Libby faces a likely sentencing range of one to three years in prison when he is sentenced June 5.

UK: No more ‘war on terror’

AP
Excerpt:
LONDON - The British government has stopped using the phrase “war on terror” to refer to the struggle against political and religious violence, according to a Cabinet minister’s prepared remarks for a Monday speech.

International Development Secretary Hilary Benn, a rising star of the governing Labour Party, says in a speech prepared for delivery in New York that the expression popularized by President Bush after the Sept. 11 attacks strengthens terrorists by making them feel part of a bigger struggle.

Extracts from Benn’s speech at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation were released by his office.

“We do not use the phrase ‘war on terror’ because we can’t win by military means alone, and because this isn’t us against one organized enemy with a clear identity and a coherent set of objectives,” Benn said.

Ex-Justice Official’s Statements Contradict Gonzales on Firings

Washington Post
Excerpt:
The former Justice Department official who carried out the firings of eight U.S. attorneys last year told Congress that several of the prosecutors had no performance problems and that a memo on the firings was distributed at a Nov. 27 meeting attended by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, a Democratic senator said yesterday.

The statements to House and Senate investigators by Michael A. Battle, former director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, represent another potential challenge to the credibility of Gonzales, who has said that he never saw any documents about the firings and that he had “lost confidence” in the prosecutors because of performance problems.

Battle’s statements, relayed to reporters yesterday by Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), came as Gonzales prepares for a make-or-break appearance on Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Prepared testimony released yesterday indicates Gonzales will apologize to the fired prosecutors for the way they were treated and will acknowledge that he has been “less than precise” in describing his role in the firings.

Domenici Sought Iglesias Ouster

ABQ Journal
Excerpt:
Former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias was fired after Sen. Pete Domenici, who had been unhappy with Iglesias for some time, made a personal appeal to the White House, the Journal has learned.
Domenici had complained about Iglesias before, at one point going to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales before taking his request to the president as a last resort.
The senior senator from New Mexico had listened to criticism of Iglesias going back to 2003 from sources ranging from law enforcement officials to Republican Party activists.
Domenici, who submitted Iglesias’ name for the job and guided him through the confirmation process in 2001, had tried at various times to get more white-collar crime help for the U.S. Attorney’s Office— even if Iglesias didn’t want it.
At one point, the six-term Republican senator tried to get Iglesias moved to a Justice Department post in Washington, D.C., but Iglesias told Justice officials he wasn’t interested.
In the spring of 2006, Domenici told Gonzales he wanted Iglesias out

Rudy Giuliani in a dress: Will voters care?

MSNBC
Excerpt:
NEW YORK - It is difficult to shock New Yorkers, yet Rudy Giuliani teetered close to the line when he sauntered onto a stage wearing a platinum-blond wig, a face full of makeup, dainty white gloves and a frilly pink gown filled out in all the right places.

His appearance at an annual political roast was exactly 10 years ago, and at the time, the idea of the tough-talking mayor in a busty ball gown raised eyebrows but was mostly accepted as a good joke — adhering to an unwritten rule for the shenanigans that take place at the roast, known as the Inner Circle dinner.

Shortly after winning re-election that year, Giuliani took his feminine side to a national audience. While hosting “Saturday Night Live,” he appeared in one skit as a bosomy, gray-haired Italian grandmother in lipstick and a flowered housedress, with stockings pulled halfway up his calves.

CNN: Dramatic increase in Army desertions

AP
Excerpt:
Phil McDowell joined the military because of patriotism he felt after 9/11, reports CNN. He then served a year in Iraq because he thought he was fighting for a just cause.

“I did believe it was a just cause at the time,” he says. “I thought that was something that, our country was under attack, and [Saddam Hussein] was facilitating these attacks, and he was a threat to us.”

But in light of evidence that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction and there were no credible ties between Iraq and al Qaeda, McDowell changed his mind and became “disillusioned,” reports CNN.

McDowell finished his tour and tried to leave the military, but was “stunned to learn the rules had changed and he was being called for another tour.”

So, McDowell fled to Canada, part of a growing group of US army deserters

Bush condemns Green Zone attack

AP
Excerpt:
“There is a type of person that would walk in that building and kill innocent life and that is the same type of person that is willing to come and kill innocent Americans,”…
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the attack showed terrorists were determined to destroy the Iraqi people’s dreams of democracy, but did not mean that Bush’s troop increase in Iraq had failed…
McCain said the bombing could not take away from the initial, small successes of the surge. “It makes all of us sad for these public servants who have been injured or killed, but I don’t think you can change the larger picture (that) we are achieving some small successes,” said McCain, a presidential candidate who has been a vocal supporter of the war effort….

HL’s Take
It has gotten to the point now where we know they are lying, and they know that we know that they are lying so why not just tell the most obvious lies possible. It’s not like anything is going to be done about it. So why even try to come up with something plausible. After 4 years and another 40,000 more troops being sent over there they still cannot even protect their own people at the highest levels in the green zone, let alone the American soldiers and Iraqi citizens over there. It is failure at it’s most stunning level of incompetence. Which is exactly the way Bush, and Rice want it. The longer we fail the longer we stay and the more money Bush makes. In another year and a half the Bush family will slither off to Paraguay with the US Treasury never to be heard from again. Then we can start rebuilding America from the ground up. Like we did with Clinton, after the last Bush fiasco. Oh and by the way more proof the Surge is a piece of S**t just like the people who came up with the idea.

April 2007: The deadliest month of the Iraq occupation

Attytood
Excerpt:

We’re more than a third of the way through April now, and I haven’t seen this actually reported in the media anywhere, but unfortunately this has been the deadliest month for the U.S.-led coalition forces — on an average daily basis — of the four-year occupation of Iraq.

So far, according to icasualties.org, 47 American troops and six British soldiers have died in the 11 days of April so far — an average of 4.82 coalition deaths every day. And — looking at the month to month statistics — no month has been that high since Baghdad fell on April 9, 2003.

Not even November 2004, when the U.S. beseiged Fallujah in the days following President Bush’s re-election — the daily fatality average that month was 4.7. In April 2004, when radical Shiites loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr were up in arms, the average was 4.67 coalition deaths per day. Ironically, al-Sadr’s henchmen had been sitting out the recent fighting, but just yesterday the radical cleric renewed his pressure, at least verbally, on the Americans. Does that mean things get even worse before they get better?