DuHS

Get a life. Get a real job. We never needed a Department of Homeland Security, and we never will. Fuck you. Quit spying on and harassing me online. Stop sending web bots and AI profiles at me wasting my very valuable time. Fuck you. I want my money back, assholes. Why do you love Christopher D. Baker and Shirlington Limo so goddamned much, huh? America could survive one hundred 9/11s, I'm no pussy. Fuck you assholes. Go away nepotists, criminals. Building a corporate castle system isn't going to save that old money. DHS, you're the best argument for smaller government (and birth control) that there is.

More recent "breakthroughs" in the DC Madam account

Things are proceeding nicely, if not endlessly, with the text and the interested should know that a release date within the year is a strong possibility, no later than early 2012. Hey, let's wish us all luck with that one, we're going to need it in the coming months, and that ain't hay, brother--we're in the thick of it.

I told Jeane's former counselor, Montgomery Blair Sibely, back in late 2008 that she should have stayed alive since things were going to collapse anyway--she might have been able to walk right out of her cell. This was at the onset of the economic crisis, or rather, when it began affecting the American middle class, the only time it's "important."

There have been some "new" developments during the writing, revising, and editing process: most writers and researchers know that sometimes you can go back and look at the information with new eyes, a different context, more information, and so on, and notice something you might have missed the first time around. This wasn't a case of that entirely, since I had some terrifying suspicions during my time doing research for Jeane's defense. They point right back to the CIA and defense-intelligence contractors. Some of it relates to Brent R. Wilkes and Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, former-and-convicted Executive Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and what I consider to be an elephant in the room: their involvement in air operations with the Agency's SAD (Special Activities Division), yes, the section that does what you think they do.

They also run the drone program in AFPAK, killing maybe thousands (who's counting?) of people who were never in their sights. Why didn't all of this get more play? You tell me, they must have a Red Bat Phone to all the editors.

Frequently, the SAD illegally assassinates human targets that they originally set out to, remarkable, I know. They also sometimes grab people, throw them into business jets they've hired-out (contracted would be a more accurate term, but what the hell), and have them interrogated on dubious grounds in some other nation, more often to manufacture false intelligence to justify reckless foreign policy with molding public opinion in mind. Wilkes's ADCS (Automatic Document Conversion Service) was acting as a front company for SAD, as found in the 2009 "sentencing memorandum appendix" for Foggo. Direct knowledge of the rendition program was some of the "graymail" during his legal proceedings, that he would tell all about it if he got hit with too stiff a sentence.

It goes without saying that I believe, and have believed all along, that her case was about Hookergate, that it wasn't separate from it at all. Motions by the prosecution during the proceedings make this patently clear, and The Smoking Gun's Bill Bastone did more than a little tipping-off on the connection between Palfrey and the "Poway Mob," convicted former California Rep. Randy Cunningham, Brent R. Wilkes, Mitchell Wade, and Kyle Foggo, all involved in bribery, influence peddling, abuse of office, corruption, etc., to bilk the public under the banner of national security and the war on terror. Call it what you want, but it's really war profiteering, outright corruption.

I believe that Jeane was correct and sincere when she said to me and others that Brent R. Wilkes had called her "frequently" and had "used his own name." I believe he was calling from the Westin Grand, the Watergate Hotel, or from someone else's residence, someone who might come off as innocuous in her phone records. There's something very, very dark here that I believe leads to the rendition program, it wasn't just about Wilkes ferrying Cunningham and Tom Delay around for free, literally on the public's dime. That's illegal too. Now Wilkes is out on appeal and Palfrey's long dead, perhaps safely so in their eyes. This does not mean that I believe she was murdered or that he's ever going to admit to an association with her.

The other player in procuring prostitutes to acquire appropriations was Mitchell Wade--he was handling a lot of the procuring for Wilkes, per his testimony in the record, and he was going through Christopher D. Baker's Shirlington Limo who still runs his firm out of a hangar at Ronald Reagan National Airport, Hangar 7, another convenient place--at least before all of the attention--to run a front company and SAD air operations out of. There was a lot of "ferrying" going on, apparently, to the point that Wilkes was handling many of the calls, lining things up himself. And that's when I believe he fucked up and used his own name on the phone when he spoke with Jeane, all due to his exaggerated sense of self-importance at the time. Hey, he was rubbing elbows with the CIA's brass, he was in the big time.

Wilkes probably thought that he was impervious, so he walked around with his dick out, just like the Republican lobbyists, former and current GOP incumbents (people like Cunningham), and bureaucratic CIA hacks (like Foggo) he was greasing, greasing to feed on public monies, did. They were all laughing at that very same public with their hooker-and-cigar parties at those two hotels, possibly even at some private homes, playing poker, but really mixing business and pleasure, the hallmark of every fuck up. Wilkes had no prior experience providing aviation services, to anyone, but who really cared? Subordinates who could report it.

In 2003, Foggo wrangled Wilkes a bottled water contract for a CIA field station; some accounts state that the water was headed for Iraq, the record steers clear of exactly where, but it appears that it was Germany. Why would they need bottled water exactly? What was wrong with the local fare? Perhaps it was a case of repeated dysentery, but it's a peculiar contract, that "bottled water" one. Again, no prior experience, and the water was simply purchased off-the-shelf, maybe even from a Wal-Mart, then marked-up 60%, as the court's record states in Foggo's case.

Consider all of the above the next time the Republicans start yammering about the deficit and the national debt.

I've written on some of this before, but there's something here beyond mere profiteering, it's worse, far worse, and the narrowing of the DC Madam scandal to "big names" (everyone but Cunningham, Wade, Foggo and Wilkes) by the mainstream press was both cunning and another pathetic example of their loyalty to established power. They were hiding something very ugly here, it might have had something to do with the rendition program, but it most certainly had to do with defense-intelligence (mis)appropriations, the corrupt contractors who were gaming the system, major league DC lobbyists, political operatives and the seeding of the bureaucracy, and what the decline of an empire looks like.

This text will be a testament to these times, at a threshold moment in world history when above and below temporarily change places.

http://s3.amazonaws.com/propublica/assets/docs/foggo_139_2.pdf

http://www.city-data.com/businesses/639735166-shirlington-limousine-washington-dc.html

DC Madam teaser: A big "fuck you" to DHS from the grave...

For the curious who really wanted to know what the DC Madam scandal was about: it was about illegal lobbying and appropriations practices, for starters.

From December 2007:

---- Original Message -----

From: Jeane Palfrey

To:

Cc: [...]

Sent: 12/26/2007 9:08:28 PM

Subject: RE: From Verizon records, a DHS member...

Matt… just gotta love it! -Jeane PS if Bil’s suggestion that I was being used as the “fall gal” in the hope, Representative Slaughter’s persistent questioning would stop; thus driving attention away from the likely panorama of corruption the bad actors surely must have been trying to keep hidden – why then would they assume such a strategy would work? Unless of course, they thought I quickly would capitulate and not fight as I have. [Bingo!] Nonetheless, I don’t understand why the ‘gift’ (Pamela Martin’s services) could be seen by Slaughter, as some sort of answer to her investigation into the shenanigans of K Street and the CIA and God only knows who else at this point. After all, I/we were not in c[a]hoots with Wilkes & Company. I was never part of any sort of influence peddling conspiracy. I absolutely had no knowledge whatsoever, of such happenings. And frankly, I suspect neither did any of the women in my employ. Was it perhaps proferred [sic] – by ??? - that I indeed was part of the conspiracy? -Jeane

If you think things have changed since Obama, I have a bridge to sell you...

Movie star Mark Ruffalo is being harassed for his antiwar and progressive acts

Where's that change? I'm not seeing any with President Obama, just a continuation of the Bush II agenda, which means that of the super-rich. In May of this year, Mark Ruffalo (Zodiac, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Last Big Thing, Shutter Island, etc.) and about 1,800 other prominent American liberals (including linguist and intellectual Noam Chomsky) singed a petition that was published as a full-page ad in a very visible New York magazine accusing the new president of war crimes.

In some respects this is worse than Bush. First, because Obama has claimed the right to assassinate American citizens whom he suspects of ‘terrorism,’ merely on the grounds of his own suspicion or that of the CIA, something Bush never claimed publicly.

They're not only factually correct in their assertion, they have a constitutionally protected right to express it without recourse. The new president--like his predecessor--doesn't appear to believe this. Odd for a constitutional scholar.

Ruffalo is generally known as an "indie" actor, but his star has been in ascendancy over the last decade, and along with that, he's been vocal in recent years about his concerns that America is rapidly moving away from its most cherished ideals, away from democracy. With endless capitulations to the corporate sector by both major political parties, endless and pointless wars, very open political corruption, and a host of misdeeds that don't need to be recalled here since we don't have all day to recount simply the ones committed under the Bush II administration, (the one that the new president's resembles more all of the time), it's definitely time to speak your peace.

Indeed, Ruffalo has been doing just that: There was the aforementioned petition, but he's been on the path of several causes, and they're valid ones. His most recent has gotten him on a terror watch list via the Pennsylvania Department of Homeland Security, part of the DHS, a decidedly corrupt institution for a war on a pronoun, so you know it's a joke on the public, and one they approved of initially.

With the ending of the "terror alert" color-coded system that everyone began ignoring after it was abused for openly political reasons, they have good reason to be concerned when a likable guy like Ruffalo starts going around accusing the president and corporations of corruption, of criminal behavior. People are already all ears, and after the BP catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, it's even money that they're pissed-off. Into this latter fray enters Mr. Ruffalo who has been inviting members of the public to screenings of GasLand, a documentary that covers incredibly dangerous oil-drilling practices such as "fracking" that contaminate drinking water in the areas it's done in, one of them being Pennsylvania.

This was enough for the PDHS to place Ruffalo--a movie star actor--on a terror watch list. Ruffalo thinks "[it's] pretty fuckin' funny," and to some extent it is, but it also isn't. He was brushing-up against Big Oil, maybe even firms like Halliburton. What I want to know is who made the decision here. Were his other progressive activities taken into account? Was the White House a part of any of these decisions? What recourse would an average citizen have had in this case?

Hold-outs: He's not what you think he is. Actions speak louder than words.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/dailydish/detail?entry_id=77671

Information on the May 2010 petition accusing President Obama of war crimes: http://weaselzippers.us/2010/05/15/2000-us-actors-prominent-liberals-accuse-obama-of-war-crimes-says-hes-worse-than-bush-for-authorizing-assassination-of-anwar-al-awlaki/

The Northwest flight tard who blew his balls off (blues)

It seemed poetic, didn't it? The ruins of Detroit and the rest of America now needed to be protected once again from rich Nigerian tards with a screw loose (definitely not Fela Kuti material) and Gulf state professionals (easily indoctrinated with a middle-class education), and this would then require things like a "Department of Homeland Security for the Department of Homeland Security," it being that corrupt and worthless government institution created by "anti-government conservatives" inspired by the laughably sad likes of Grover Norquist. Thanks for the inaction with FEMA during Katrina. Point taken: government doesn't work...when you're in charge.

Yes, Washington D.C. really is Hollywood for ugly, stupid weaklings, and a more byzantine route to sex hasn't existed since the Mandarins. It's called "dysfunctional" for reason.

We're told with a straight face by Republicans, pundits (usually the same thing), and even the White House, that this is all serious when it's not. There's nothing serious or even remotely threatening about a retard blowing his balls off on a crowded airliner. This is all that he accomplished. This is the threat of terrorism, creole bourgeois extremists. That's not a very real threat at all. The real threat is how compromised our elected leaders--a euphemism--are to the paymasters in Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states. This is that infinitesimal chance that you'll slip in the shower and break your neck. This is the fear of one's shadow, the time of the hollow men. They will build palaces to this stupidity and this fear that will stand less than a generation, because you can't build a solid foundation on quivering shit.

To be afraid of a gaggle of clowns; to hand over any rights whatsoever over this; to think that the threat of terrorism is especially great and will affect you; is madness. The threat--I repeat--the threat is not real, and the war on terror is theater. No, I don't think this was "planned"--once again, like the events of September 11th, 2001, this is one more case of profound bureaucratic incompetence, piled one-upon-another and opportunism after-the-fact. I repeat: this is not a confirmation that government does not work. It's a confirmation that conservatives and corporatist influence within government do not work, and can never work to protect us or even to provide a livable society. In other words, any State-corporate nexus is the problem, and this comes from the revolving-door of appointees from the corporate world, something this current president has done plenty of, just like the last. Why would he fire all these Bush II appointees when he's the same? Quit fooling yourself.

But if stupid young men blowing their balls off scares you enough to hand over your liberty, you don't deserve any. If you allow the herd to stampede us there without a fight, you don't deserve any. Cowardice comes in many forms, and Americans do plenty of talking and no walking. I could take these bastards on any flight, any time, any day. I am not afraid. Cowards are afraid of their own shadow, and that's exactly what's happening in the American mind (or what's left of it) right now: we know our wars are illegal and immoral and that we have something coming to us. We know we are complicit. This is collective-guilt writ large. Did he blow off your balls, or his?

House Committee on Oversight and Reform Chair Henry A. Waxman was looking into selective prosecution in Palfrey case in 2007

Washington D.C.--They say the wheels of justice are slow...especially when you're on the short-list. In 2007, California Rep. Henry A. Waxman was chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and was apparently showing some interest in the DC Madam's legal plight and whether it might be politically motivated, even possibly having a connection to the U.S. Attorney firings. Why show interest, then drop it? Sure, perhaps there were other fish to fry, or he didn't think that there was much there--fine-and-well--but that doesn't appear to be the case and sounds more like another Democratic cop-out.

Waxman was presented with materials sometime in December, possibly January, by counsel regarding Palfrey's case. Apparently, he and his staff did look into it, but short-listed her, and even confirmed it did appear that her case was politically motivated, but then it went nowhere as it often does in the nation's capital. So much for oversight and due process, get in line, lady. Did I mention that Democratic Rep. Louise Slaughter was also pushing for a probe into the procurement of prostitutes by a DHS contractor, Christopher D. Baker (who has a 60+ page rap sheet), "proprietor" of Shirlington Limo?

DHS rebuffed Slaughter entirely, imagine that. They weren't alone: the CIA and DIA were stonewalling in such matters. And surprise-surprise, Baker kept getting multi-million dollar contracts from Congress to unnecessarily ferry appointed turds around DC on our dollar. One has to ponder if I and many others were correct in assuming that Palfrey's problems were directly related to "hookergate," a scandal involving cigar-and-hooker parties with CIA staffers, GOP congressmen, and government contractors such as Brent Wilkes at the Westin and Watergate Hotels. It sure looks like there was more than smoke...

On 2/4/08, Jeane Palfrey <jeanepalfrey@> wrote:

Bil… isn’t it realistic to think the Feds were looking at me in the same way, they viewed Michael? Perhaps, they thought I too was “in cohoots” with the Poway Mafia. Gotta admit – lots of connections (San Diego, Wells Fargo Bank, Shirlington Limo, Wilkes’s ongoing patronage of my business, Smoking Gun’s bizarre phone call to me in Germany). After several years of investigation though, they honestly had gotten ‘no where’ from what I have been able to ascertain. It is only my abnormal actions, in the summer of 2006, i.e. abrupt business closure, move to Europe, etc which I believe caused alarm and the rationale for the subsequent and sudden California trip. All this discussion about being a diversion is a little out there. Don’t you think? A bit too conspiratorial. I have found most things in life are rather simple, when you get right down to it. Yet, both Jason’s investigation and contacts and Waxman’s investigation and contacts are leading in the direction, that my case was part and parcel of the DOJ’s efforts, to prosecute selective targets verses any sort of garden variety screw up here. -Jeane

This relates back thematically (politically motivated prosecution) to a 12/23/2007 email, posted below for the public record, a primary historical document. My personal opinion is that Smoking Gun editor Bill Bastone was told by federal prosecutors--illegally, mind you--that Palfrey was somehow connected to a very specific corruption scandal emanating out of San Diego and Poway, California from just a few years ago. She had a property in Poway, Vallejo, and a condo in Florida. It sounds like she made more than the $2 million she and the government were claiming in court filings. Why would they all lie? In her case, exoneration, but what of the prosecutors? Perhaps it was the same for them.

They also leaked an unsigned warrant to him, also illegal, but nothing's illegal for some of us it seems. From the December 23, 2007 email:

Blair… if you ever doubt that my case is politically motivated OR simply “can’t go there” with the mounting circumstantial evidence of selective prosecution, I would ask that you read the highlighted portion below in particular, from Bil earlier today. Never forgot that son-of-a bitch, Bill Bastone’s first question to me in Germany, just days after the warrant was executed on my property had to do with Cunningham and Bastone’s insistence that I professionally knew the “Dukester”; this, despite my continued statements to the contrary. -Jeane

I have no reason to think that Palfrey was lying about the Smoking Gun's editor Bill Bastone and his statements directed at her that she was part of the scandal surrounding convicted GOP Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, now residing in a federal penitentiary for taking bribes, gifts, and sexual favors. Someone told him this, and that someone was probably part of the investigation and the prosecution, probably the someone who was directing the whole puppet show.

These bribes were given to former representative Cunningham for his votes on specific legislation and appropriations that went directly to convicted government contractor, Brent R. Wilkes and others like former number three man at the CIA, Kyle "Dusty" Foggo. With nicknames like these, you'd think you were dealing with the mafia, but what's the difference? Do you think Cunningham's alone in this, taking bribes, bedding prostitutes for his vote? Nah, me either.

By the way: ever see that crappy 80s movie, "Top Gun"? That was "based" on Cunningham's experiences as a combat fighter pilot during the Vietnam War. You can get it in blow-out at Walmart now for around $5. Cunningham wasn't exactly a hero in Vietnam either, but that's another story altogether. What he is now is a convicted felon who even has other more pressing problems. From some of the public statements made during his criminal proceedings, it sounds like he couldn't always get-it-up, but that's politics for you. Cunningham's a good metaphor for American-style politics and capitalism, meaning corrupt, embarrassing, delusional, and impotent. Except that it's not a metaphor.

Mainstream Media: "Swine flu less dangerous than hoped"

MSM--It was true, the story was tanking. But then, so were all of America's once great newspapers, they were falling like flies. Polls showed that roughly 30% of America's population likes to panic for the hell of it--we know this--while another unknown percentage could be typed in the "Shelly Winters" bracket--they have to be slapped back into reason, thanking us for it later.

Then there's Ted Nugent and Chuck Norris, two men totally immune to any appeals to reason.

Swine flu is going to amount to nothing. The CDC and the Obama administration have been correct in not taking too many chances and trying to be ready. Vice President Joe Biden's comments about enclosed spaces was stupid.

The DHS is still irrelevant and burdensome, so it's not going away anytime soon. Neither are people who will panic at the drop of a hat. Some people get off on freaking out, running around yelling, "OH SHIT!!" The rest of us do not. Please try to listen to the rest of us some time.

Accused Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich loses Homeland Security Clearance--what other accused politicians have?

Washington D.C.--There's no indication that former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens lost his security clearance during the legal proceedings in his own case, so why the move on Blagojevich's? To hurt him, to make him appear "bad," to assassinate his character. Yes, yes, one was a senator, the other a governor--except that Stevens was under investigation for a very long time as Blagojevich has been (years), and there was every indication that he was guilty, just like the Governor of Illinois.

Great, they have a lot in common...except in how they're being treated. At least Ted Stevens is going to have a hard time practicing law in Alaska, but does it matter? He's in his eighties. Stevens got the kid-glove treatment for far longer. Yes, there have been "ongoing investigations" into Blagojevich for years, which is not simply odd but smells of someone gunning for someone.

On Stevens's last day in the Senate, he was given a standing ovation. It wasn't reassuring that anything was about to change in Congress anytime soon. This is an individual--not a man--who was convicted of seven felonies by a jury of his peers. You read that right if you didn't somehow know it already: seven felony convictions. Stevens was also on committees and subcommittees that dealt directly with the DHS.

There's no indication from the record that he was ever stripped of any of his security clearances at any point until it was clear he was convicted and leaving office.

That's not the case with Blagojevich, and yet, the Bush II administration must be behind some of it--they still have sixteen days left in office, not the Obama team. Surely, they requested it--someone did--and it's safe to assume that it was for political reasons that cross party lines into the realms of class loyalty and preserving a rotten barrel. By all appearances, Ted Stevens retained his DHS security clearance (and his general security clearance as a sitting representative) until he was indicted in July 2008. Blagojevich hasn't even been indicted yet, but the calls to move quickly in unseating him stand in stark contrast with the treatment of other politicians accused of criminal behavior.

That's a matter of procedure at that point, but it should have been stripped from Stevens much earlier than it was, but Republicans can do anything they want.

Somehow, a man with seven felony convictions deserves a standing ovation before the Senate of the United States, while a standing governor of Illinois deserves no presumption of innocence until proven guilty, including the removal of said clearance, and so on. If that's not a contemptible attitude for due process to serve political ends, then nothing is. Republican senators did their best to block stripping Stevens from holding leadership roles on committees for exactly one year after the FBI raided his home. His indictment forced their hand.

Governor Blagojevich hasn't even technically been indicted yet and U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald is asking for "more time" to shore-up one. Curious, that--all of it. Perhaps we'll all be singing "The Wreck of the Patrick Fitzgerald" before long.

Revised 01.04.2008

More GOP Failures and Negligence: The Lower 9th Ward is Flooding Again

New Orleans, Louisiana--That's right, it's happening again, and we're getting scanty coverage of it in a manner that's familiar. Some levees that did not break during Katrina have broken and the Industrial Canal levees are being breached by overtopping as evident from what coverage we're seeing today on television. This appears to have happened within the last two hours.

Mission accomplished: the GOP is still wrecking America. McCain's urging of aid is a belated move by the problem itself. Meanwhile--back at the ranch--Bush is coddling-up with mommy (who looks like the spitting image of George Washington) and daddy. Incredible, but we expected John McCain to keep eating that cake with George W. Bush the second time around.

"New Orleans Lower Ninth Ward Flooding From Gustav's Storm Surges," All Headline News, 09.01.2008: http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7012135607

Thank you God: Hurricane Gustav underscores Republican inaction since Katrina

The Gulf Coast--The Industrial Canal's levee is overtopping again. Once again, we're seeing damages in the billions. Nearly 2 million people living in and around New Orleans and the neighboring parishes have fled. There appears to be no substantial government reaction. John McCain and the Republican National Committee have suspended nearly all activities at their convention in St. Paul, Minnesota. It seems that God has retained its sense of humor.

Almost never failing to say the wrong thing at the right time, candidate McCain stuck his foot in his mouth stating, "We must take off our Republican hat[s], and put on our American hat[s]." Or something like that, since the media doesn't appear to agree on the exact wording.

Well, right: "We can be heroes, just for one day," stated David Bowie so eloquently. And that's about as far as it's ever going to go. McCain and the GOP lack such eloquence, which comes from being on the wrong side of history. After all, besides being the un-American party, the GOP represents what's inhuman about humanity. The greed, the corruption, the venality, the vanity, the ignorance--and of course--temerity.

Three-years-ago, John McCain was eating cake with President George W. Bush while tens-of-thousands of Americans were left stranded in New Orleans, it's environs, and much of the rest of the Gulf Coast hit by hurricane Katrina. Very little has changed, and one can imagine the sighs of relief that were exhaled when the Bush canceled his speech before the Republican convention to cover his ass.

What's bizarre is that he went to Texas to do it, but he likes it there. We like it when he goes there, just not when he comes back. Americans are waiting with bated breath for him to never return from there to Washington D.C. ever again. God doesn't like the Democrats anymore than the Republicans, incidentally--he just hates Republicans more.

And now we're hearing that Senator McCain is working to "lead a humanitarian effort" to help down in the Gulf. That's great, but it's not really noble when you contributed to the incompetence, neglect, and corruption that created the mess that still exists down in New Orleans and the neighboring parishes 3 years and 3 days to the day of Katrina's landfall and the overtopping and breaching of the levee system there. That's a failure of government shared by both parties, but the majority of the responsibility resides with the antisocial GOP.

The GOP tends to play their hand too often (they suck at poker): now they're harping over a joke that a former DNC Chairman (Don Fowler, who was Chairman one year, from 1995-1996) made on an air-flight, seizing on it in their pathetic desperation to avoid any-and-all responsibility for their actions. The majority of Americans are used to this, and it's become tiresome. Fowler's comments aren't significantly different from that of religious lunatic James Dobson's bait-and-switch for the GOP when he commanded his zombie followers to pray for rain at the Democratic convention in Denver so that Obama couldn't give his speech--except that Fowler was kidding. Those "oogah-boogah" folks would be funny if they had no effect on the rest of us.

The writing's on the wall: if the business community keeps getting its way (greased by dirty politicians in both parties, but even worse with the GOP), then nature's going to strike-back and correct things. Nobody on earth can change this fact. It really is a very religious and spiritual-themed moment, isn't it? Nature has struck-back once again at a ridiculous economic order that overdeveloped in the region surrounding New Orleans, cutting-away precious marshland barriers that prevented such flooding for countless centuries, long before Europeans ever settled here in North America. That's not just stupidity, it's lower than animal behavior, and headed for the dustbin of history. Thank God for that.

EWIGE BLUMENKRAFT: SAIC's Founder Publishes a P.R.-Autobiography While Rome & Mesopotamia Burn

"Nothing is true, everything is permitted."--Statement attributed to Hassan-i Sabah (more likely 'Budayl', a later Islamic heretic of Isma'ili Islam)

S.A.I.C.UNIVERSE--Edward Teller, eat your heart out, you were never this wrong-headed (just nuts). It helps to have friends in Congress, especially if you get them laid (or something within the law with a little touchy-touchy), drunk, and ply them with Cuban cigars. You know, just like Randy 'Duke' Cunningham and his pals who are also up-on-charges. Some of the same players with 'Duke' are related to SAIC. Yes, it's 'expensive to do business in Washington,' it really is. Of course, you won't find anything about how they really get those contracts with the Pentagon and the intelligence community in any of the 200-odd pages of founder Dr. J. Robert Beyster's book "The SAIC Solution: How We Built an $8 Billion Employee-Owned Technology Company," published in August.

True, Beyster had the advantage of starting SAIC when the Pentagon was on a spending spree because of the Cold War and the Vietnam War. He knew it would not last forever and started to branch out into other categories. [Ed.-yeah, what a shame, we should have an endless war.] A key part of his strategy was pursuing mergers and acquisitions (M&A). The most stellar deal was the $4.5 million acquisition of Network Solutions in 1994. His goal was to grab a share of telecom business and pick up clients like AT&T (NYSE: T). Network Solutions also managed the registry for Internet domain names. As the market surged, so did the value of the company. With SAIC as its largest shareholder, Network Solutions went public in 1997, raising $67 million. It raised $779 million in a follow-on offering in 1999 and raised another $2.3 billion in 2000. Then a few months later, Network Solutions sold out to VeriSign (Nasdaq: VRSN) for $19.6 billion (who said M&A is a bad thing?). (Motleyfool.com, 08.28.2007)

The review at Motley Fool is pretty adulatory, with no research whatsoever into the numerous lawsuits that SAIC has been involved in. Some included fraud on government contracts. I'll let you readers do some of those web searches, prove me wrong. Right, who said "M&A is a bad thing"? Well myself, and many others, actually.

This is just too much power, it's corporate welfare, and it undermines all the basic-tenets of the marketplace by eliminating any chance of competition--but that's the argument of capitalists, and this writer isn't one (I'm biased, I know). What SAIC really constitutes is the 9th biggest military/intel contractor in the United States. What else is missing here? Oh yeah: real questions about SAIC's behavior behind-the-scenes in the warrantless wiretapping scandal. Were they involved? They certainly have the capabilities--just look at their anagram: "Science Applications International Corporation." You think they could hack into a database? You think they know the back-doors? They should, considering that they owned Network Solutions for several years.

Why do I think this book is a PR-response to the fear within SAIC that a very big storm is coming their way? The very same day of the Motley Fool book review, SAIC was magically awarded a three-year, $85 million contract to service what is now a sub-entity of the Department of Homeland Security, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau. It's nice to have friends in high-places, strategically positioned to facilitate with a nod (or a no-bid contract):

The three-year deal awarded by the Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday will provide the agency with hardware and software maintenance, help desk support, directory and messaging services and network and security operations support. Under the contract, the government contractor will support more than 19,000 agents at 550 sites for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau. (AP, 08.29.2007)

As previously written at this site, Ronald Roughead works for SAIC as some kind of intelligence analyst, and possibly in some psy-ops/propaganda/public diplomacy role. His brother is one Gary Roughead, now CNO of the United States Navy. Just days after brother Gary was awarded this commission, SAIC was awarded a contract with the Navy. Is there a connection? There might be.

Admiral Roughead is mentioned as a speaker in a couple of military association and foundation newsletters (National Defense & Transportation Association & the Naval War College Foundation), along with Harlan Ullman in the NWCF publication. While brother Gary isn't in the phone records of Pamela Martin & Associates, his brother is, and Mr. Ullman has been identified as a client by Ms. Deborah Jeane Palfrey, former proprietor of the aforementioned escort firm. Corporate sponsors of both newsletters and institutions list SAIC as a donor. Further searches on the internet--that could be done by anyone in minutes--would likely yield more of the same. But back to Ronald Roughead again. Some of Ronnie's testimony is in a past article at this site titled 'Pax Americanus...,' and makes for some very funny reading. We're supposed to believe that Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups are using modified video games to recruit young people.

One--ostensibly called 'Sonic Jihad'-- betrays the media (games, movies, music, etc.) ignorance of whoever concocted it for the House Intelligence Committee back at SAIC (or whatever little contractor's home, after-hours). Another piece of evidence was also presented--a short 11-minute clip from the internet. It has been discredited back in May 24th of 2006 as a joke by its creator--a 25-year-old Dutch gamer named 'Samir':

The 11-minute video shows a man in Arab head-dress carrying an automatic weapon into combat with U.S. invaders, and it was shown to a U.S. Congressional Committee this month as evidence of a militant campaign to recruit Muslim youth on the Internet. "It was just for fun, nothing political," said Samir, a 25 year-old Dutch gamer, in an interview with Reuters. "It has nothing to do with recruiting people or training people." Samir, who did not want to be identified by his full name, is a Muslim who was born and raised in the Netherlands and is a fan of U.S. movies and rap music. (Reuters, 05.24.2006)

So, what's this all about? Why play-up the threat? The answer--my friend--is blowing in-the-wind (from Washington)...in the form of dollars (and no sense). Republicans are curiously credulous about such so-called 'evidence,' but being a corporate welfare freak is a bipartisan affair.

One would assume they want to believe a little too much on Capitol Hill, carrying a priori assumptions with them about the rewards that will meet them in this life (there is no other, no pie-in-the-sky). Forget Hassan-i Sabah's promise, the Garden of Earthly Delights is here for those who service the contractors (no hash necessary, power is the ultimate drug & aphrodisiac). Conquest means never having to understand your victims.

On Samir, that Code Red threat to America (05.24.2006): http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,196889,00.html

For heaven's SAIC (Motley Fool indeed): http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2007/08/28/foolish-book-review-the-saic-solution.aspx

Gary's Brother Ron Roughead attempts to gain a contract for SAIC with some

truly shoddy evidence (May 4th, 2006): http://intelligence.house.gov/Media/PDFS/Hoffman4May06.pdf

HOOKERGATE: AMERICAN MEDIA RELUCTANT TO ISSUE FULL LIST, THOUGH ABC IS IN POSESSION OF 10,000-NAME MASTER

"Had he done so earlier along with the many, many others who have used my company's services throughout the years, I most likely would not be in my current predicament." --Deborah Jeane Palfrey today. (Reuters UK, 05.01.2007)

Washington D.C. (party town!)--She's still talking and Heidi Fleiss is chiming-in that she shouldn't be telling who her clients were. Yeah. Then, the wires are reporting that Deborah Jeane Palfrey "is sorry" for outing Randall Tobias, a Bush administration appointee in the State Department who resigned on Friday after ABC released his name from her list on Thursday. Now, she's asked a federal judge if she can sell-off shares in Dolby laboratories since they've peaked in value:

The woman accused of running a prostitution ring serving Washington's elite, including at least one U.S. government official, also appears to be something of a stock picker. The woman, Deborah Jeane Palfrey, asked a federal judge on Monday for permission to sell almost 5,000 shares of Dolby Laboratories that were in an account frozen by the government because she believed the stock had reached its high point. (Reuters UK, 05.01.2007)

The judge isn't going to do it, which could suggest there's also an SEC investigation here. One has to question why ABC is sitting-on that 9,997-strong list. We've only heard about three names so far. Let's hear some more, please. America's at least a partially Puritanical nation of serial voters, and those folks are waiting in rapt attention. So am I. ABC: what gives?

We should all be asking ourselves where Ms. Palfrey gets her stock tips. Could it come from people with access to data being mined in the warrantless surveillance programs being expedited by the Pentagon and the NSA? Certain Bush administration officials have such security clearances and could do it. This could take insider trading to a new level. Their access to such information must be unprecedented, skirting numerous federal regulations that are routinely enforced by entities like the SEC (and also investigated by the FBI under white-collar crime laws). Except...
Interestingly, the FBI's investigations into white-collar crimes have literally plummeted under the Bush administration, though this should be no surprise to even the most casual observer on the political scene.

Thousands of white-collar criminals across the country are no longer being prosecuted in federal court -- and, in many cases, not at all -- leaving a trail of frustrated victims and potentially billions of dollars in fraud and theft losses. It is the untold story of the Bush administration's massive restructuring of the FBI after the terrorism attacks of 9/11. Five-and-a-half years later, the White House and the Justice Department have failed to replace at least 2,400 agents transferred to counterterrorism squads, leaving far fewer agents on the trail of identity thieves, con artists, hatemongers and other criminals. Two successive attorneys general have rejected the FBI's pleas for reinforcements behind closed doors. (Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 04.11.2007)

And so, we have to assume that this was part of the whole design of the Bush agenda, perhaps before 1999. Surely, it didn't occur on-accident. There has been a bum rush on the system by a horde of criminals occupying our seat of government. It's as simple as that.

With the vast funds that have been appropriated for the failed war on terror, surely, these Special Agents could have been replaced by now. But if you're a criminal who's seized the levers of power, you would also defund the people who are supposed to guard the public from you and your accomplices.Why mention white collar crimes in all of this? There is smoke here, and Ms. Palfrey needs to be questioned about the particulars of her stocks and how she decided on their purchase (who, if anyone, advised her on the purchases?), the timing of the purchases, and a lot more. Maybe if we're lucky, we can find an FBI agent who isn't busy listening-in on our phone calls, watering Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff's lawn, or doing...who knows under this war on terrorism? Of course, there could even be a connection here with the U.S. Attorney firings, but that's a wait and see.

It's hard to imagine what federal statutes cover a government employee working for Palfrey as a prostitute. Send in the paralegals and legal scholars, they're going to have to dust-off some very-very old laws here.

Assuredly, there is some element of criminal conspiracy here, with the possibility that Ms. Palfrey was given preferential treatment in a number of arenas such as the stock trading. It would be interesting to learn whether the federal prosecutor leading the investigation into Palfrey's case was on the Bush/Rove/Cheney/Gonzales hit-list in the U.S. Attorney firings scandal.

Sibley said he did not know whether ABC would name other customers in the "20/20" segment. Jeffrey Schneider, executive vice president at ABC News, said the network is pursuing a legitimate news story, not performing legal work for Palfrey. Palfrey has described her business as a "legal, high-end erotic fantasy service." Prosecutors say Palfrey knew that her escorts were having sex with clients and that Palfrey generated more than $2 million in revenue over 13 years, with more than 130 women employed at various times to serve thousands of clients. (AP, 05.01.2007)

$2 million seems a conservative estimate (pun-intended), especially considering the hourly-rate ($300-per-hour), and the duration (13 years). Let's face it, with 10,000 customers, it doesn't fit, and one has to wonder if the former-madame was given access to offshore accounts through various clients.

This writer wagers there was a great deal of bartering going-on in Palfrey's firm. At this point, only Palfrey, ABC, her customers, and the rest of the media knows the story. It's the public that should know every sordid detail, no matter where the trails leads. So far, it leads directly to the Oval Office...again (and again-and-again-and-again). Today, she says she's sorry that she outed State Department official, Randall Tobias. What a Palfrey excuse.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 04.11.2007: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/311046_fbiterror11.html

Reuters UK: http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKN3043095920070501

AP Today: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003687865_madam01.html