The Spitzer Resignation: Our Loss As Well As His

OK, color me fucking amazed (and not in a good way): you can lie entire nations INTO a war, and then lie about the results of that war every damned day, and yet if anyone speaks out against the lies, the naysayers are the "evil doers". Screw a prostitute using your own money and bye.

Clearly, it was WRONG of Spitzer to do what he did when he was, quite recently, New York State's chief prosecutor who could make decisions on others engaging in some of the same acts. But I still can't begin to equate prostitute-hiring with the needless deaths of more than a million innocents in Iraq (and I think that number is notoriously, obscenely low for what we know happened) as well as a MINIMUM of 4,000 soldiers.

What was sickening was the complete holy sanctity of the right yesterday, proclaiming there has never been a bigger scandal (oh really? Watergate? Iran-Contra? every fucking thing the Bush-Cheney team has DONE?) and, oh yeah, btw, "we want Spitzer out because he prosecuted so many CEOs and finance people." Read: Republicans LOVE to protect the worst offenders and God help anyone who tries to play by the rules. And then to use laws on the books from 1918 and federal task forces to bring Spitzer down, when we've got the anthrax killer still going about his business just makes me ill.

And not a single Dem seemed to lift a lip to say anything to the contrary.

Why Does John Ashcroft Get The Time of Day, Much Less A HUGE No Bid DoJ Contract?

John Ashcroft ("let the eagle snnnnnnnnnore") was such a shit that it took an even bigger turd, also former Attorney Bushie General Alberto Gonzales to make him look not so bad; so why the hell would Ashcroft deserve millions of our taxpayer dollars?

And no, the question is NOT purely rhetorical, NOR is the $26-52M he's posed to get exactly chump (except that we're the chumps) change; see Think Progress for more.

Last fall, New Jersey U.S. Attorney Chris Christie awarded his former boss, John Ashcroft, a lucrative no-bid contract to “monitor a large corporation willing to settle criminal charges out of court.” Ashcroft’s consulting company is set “to receive payments of $28 million to $52 million” in the deal, one of the biggest payouts ever reported for a federal monitor.

In an interview today, former U.S. Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach said the case is suspicious because no-bid contracts are generally awarded only if there’s a strong “reason why there isn’t” a competitive process

Hallelujah and Thank You, CREW!

Buzzflash reports that CREW is launching a much-needed online site specifically to help us research government documents: Governmentdocs.org.

Keith Olbermann Rates Home Run Status For His Special Comment on Government Failure with Iraq

Keith Olbermann in a special comment tonight on Countdown on MSNBC took no prisoners, extremely critical of the president's lies to take us to war in Iraq, of the Republicans who always prop up the puppetmaster in chief (we know this isn't Bush, but whether it's Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, or Dr. James Dobson is anyone's guess), and of the Democrats whom, Keith said, "had their Neville Chamberlain moment" yesterday in falling (again) under the wheels of the Energy Corps and Defense Contractor's Biggest Ever Wet Dream of Iraq Funding called the Bush Administration policy of Iraq War Surge.

No American should miss reading or viewing this special comment here. Snippets:

You, the men and women elected with the simplest of directions—Stop The War—have traded your strength, your bargaining position, and the uniform support of those who elected you… for a handful of magic beans.

A Special Comment about the Democrats’ deal with President Bush to continue financing this unspeakable war in Iraq—and to do so on his terms:

This is, in fact, a comment about… betrayal.
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Few men or women elected in our history—whether executive or legislative, state or national—have been sent into office with a mandate more obvious, nor instructions more clear:

Get us out of Iraq.

Yet after six months of preparation and execution—half a year gathering the strands of public support; translating into action, the collective will of the nearly 70 percent of Americans who reject this War of Lies, the Democrats have managed only this...

And this President!

How shameful it would be to watch an adult... hold his breath, and threaten to continue to do so, until he turned blue.But how horrifying it is… to watch a President hold his breath and threaten to continue to do so, until innocent and patriotic Americans in harm’s way, are bled white.

You lead this country, sir?

You claim to defend it? And yet when faced with the prospect of someone calling you on your stubbornness—your stubbornness which has cost 3,431 Americans their lives and thousands more their limbs—you, Mr. Bush, imply that if the Democrats don’t give you the money and give it to you entirely on your terms, the troops in Iraq will be stranded, or forced to serve longer, or have to throw bullets at the enemy with their bare hands.

How transcendentally, how historically, pathetic.

Any other president from any other moment in the panorama of our history would have, at the outset of this tawdry game of political chicken, declared that no matter what the other political side did, he would insure personally—first, last and always—that the troops would not suffer. A President, Mr. Bush, uses the carte blanche he has already, not to manipulate an overlap of arriving and departing Brigades into a ‘second surge,’ but to say in unequivocal terms that if it takes every last dime of the monies already allocated, if it takes reneging on government contracts with Halliburton, he will make sure the troops are safe—even if the only safety to be found, is in getting them the hell out of there.

Well, any true President would have done that, Sir.

You instead, used our troops as political pawns, then blamed the Democrats when you did so.

Quintessentially Bush Administration: Anti-Fraud Fed Under Investigation For Fraud

Ever feel like the federal government - and, while this is certainly not EXCLUSIVE to the Bush Administration, those folks have managed to take this art to lofty heights never before seen on the face of this planet - exists solely to waste our money, give us migraines, and detract from overall quality of life? Well, yeah, me too.

So here we go with the Bushie anti-fraud official who seems to be - heh - six feet over his head involved in defrauding; with any other administration, this fellow might get at least a slap on the wrist. With the Bushies, this guy won't just get promoted, maybe Paul Wolfowitz will volunteer to help buy him a girlfriend. ::shaking head, muttering::

A senior government official is under investigation by a congressional committee for allegations he engaged in "widespread fraud, waste, and abuse" -– the same misbehavior he is supposed to ferret out.

Johnnie Frazier, the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Commerce, is said to have rigged contract bids for cronies, fraudulently charged the government for improper travel, wasted tens of thousands of dollars on an erstwhile office remodeling and may have destroyed files that were proof of his wrongdoing, according to accounts given to lawmakers by current and former employees.

As his department's senior investigator, Frazier is supposed to "detect and prevent waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement" at Commerce, according to his office's Web site.

The Bush Administration: when you care enough to cheat and steal your very best.

Thank the Bushies For The Average 14 Cent Per Gallon Gas Price Hike In Less Than 2 Weeks

'Tis true. When gas prices began to drop, the Bushies decided to borrow yet MORE money to put even MORE fuel into the reserves - when we are at way past record levels already and with even folks in the energy biz saying Bush only does this to return prices to a high each time they begin to drop. You wouldn't believe how many tax dollars are spent just for the Bushies to "lease" holding tanks for the reserve that cannot be stored indefinately (and Bush has never released a drop).