Their real goal

with programs like NCLB, "issues" like gay marriage, networks like Fox News and amendments like this is to try to keep us ignorant. The less informed and more distracted from the real issues we are, the more crimes they can get away with.

Palin punts

Sarah Palin has decided to mark the Independence Day weekend by reducing the amount of ignorant public officials concerned more about special interests and their own net worth and electability than the welfare of their constituents. She accomplished this by resigning as governor of Alaska.

I imagine this is a dark day for stand-up comics everywhere.

But seriously folks, the speculation that she's resigning in order to run for president in 2012 doesn't hold water. She ran for VP last year while being governor. And the senior citizen she ran with last year kept his day job while running for president (granted he neglected the shit out of said day job), so why couldn't she? Why wouldn't a candidate want to bring the prestige of a governorship to a presidential campaign? I have to think some serious shit is about to hit the fan. Her complaint about investigations of “all sorts of frivolous ethics violations” is telling. Maybe the latest ethics violation isn't so frivolous (Perhaps she meant to say that the investigations, not the ethics violations, were frivolous, but perhaps not).

It's not easy for a governor and former vice presidential candidate's sudden resignation under mysterious circumstances to fly "under the radar," but Palin's announcement at the beginning of a three-day weekend marking a national holiday looks like that's what she was trying to do. Between the long weekend and the memorial service for Michael Jackson, the media may never get around to this story.

And while she is probably pissed off about the recent Vanity Fair article about her and her conduct during the 2008 presidential campaign, it's unlikely she would resign over something like that. You don't emerge from a vice presidential campaign with such thin skin.

The bottom line is that the American people are better off without a public official who apparently considers some ethics violations frivolous. And we are better off without an ignorant blank slate who will say anything, and support anything, to get elected.

UPDATE: The "frivolous" ethics violation in question.

Outgoing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is facing yet another ethics complaint — the 18th against her and the very thing that helped to prompt her resignation.

The latest complaint alleges she abused her office by accepting a salary and using state staff while campaigning outside Alaska for the vice presidency. It's the third complaint filed against the Republican since she announced July 3 that she was stepping down.

Michael Connell plane crash

Surprisingly, there may be more to this story than meets the eye.

Relatively short version: Michael Connell was a key witness in King-Lincoln v. Blackwell, a lawsuit alleging fraud in the presidential election in Ohio in 2004. Lawyers in that case have described him as "a high-IQ Forrest Gump" for his knack of being on the scene at every suspicious election since 2000.

On July 24, Cliff Arnebeck, an attorney in the case, informed U.S. Attorney General Micheal Mukasey in an e-mail that:

We have been confidentially informed by a source we believe to be credible that Karl Rove has threatened Michael Connell, a principal witness we have identified in our King Lincoln case in federal court in Columbus, Ohio, that if he does not agree to "take the fall" for election fraud in Ohio, his wife Heather will be prosecuted for supposed lobby law violations. This appears to be in response to our designation of Rove as the principal perpetrator in the Ohio Corrupt Practices Act/RICO claim with respect to which we issued document hold notices last Thursday to you and to the US Chamber of Commerce Institute for Legal Reform.

I have informed court chambers and am in the process of informing the Ohio Attorney General's and US Attorney's offices in Columbus for the purpose, among other things, of seeking protection for Mr. Connell and his family from this reported attempt to intimidate a witness.

Concurrently herewith, I am informing Mr. Conyers and Mr. Kucinich in connection with their Congressional oversight responsibilities related to these matters.

Arnebeck subsequently asked Ohio's interim Attorney General Nancy H. Rogers to provide immunity protection services to Connell.

Now, reports are surfacing that the threats extended beyond prosecutions for lobby law violations:




In addition:

WMR has learned from our Ohio sources that five threats against Connell were conveyed to the election fraud plaintiff attorneys with the last tip being “Connell is in danger.” One of the threats reportedly made by Rove to Connell was that Connell could forget about a pardon from President George W. Bush if he did not “take the fall” in the event criminal charges were brought and that his wife Heather, who was used as a majority stockholder for one of Connell’s web design companies, GovTech Solutions, would be prosecuted for illegal lobbying. Connell’s other company is New Media Communications, Inc.

We have also learned that one additional tip was relayed to Connell’s wife and it was to the effect that Connell “was in danger and he should not fly his plane.”

Connell, accompanied by Bush-Cheney lawyers, was deposed on Nov. 3, the day before election day, "about his actions during the 2004 vote count and his access to Karl Rove’s e-mail files and how they went missing," and stonewalled. Since then, "Connell has indicated very clearly a desire to talk further."

I'm not saying that there was definitely foul play in this tragic case, but I think the circumstances -- and the convenient timing for certain parties -- merit an investigation.

Is Pat Fitzgerald finished with Blago yet?

Supporting the troops

Privatization and cronyism in action.

A Georgia man has filed a lawsuit against contractor KBR and its former parent company, Halliburton, saying the companies exposed everyone at Joint Base Balad in Iraq to unsafe water, food and hazardous fumes from the burn pit there.

[...]

“Plaintiff witnessed the open air burn pit in operation at Balad Air Force Base,” the lawsuit states. “On one occasion, he witnessed a wild dog running around base with a human arm in its mouth. The human arm had been dumped on the open air burn pit by KBR.”

[...]

The lawsuit states that KBR was required to comply with military standards for clean water, and monitor it. Eller accused KBR of not performing water quality tests and of not properly treating or chlorinating water, and said an audit by the Defense Department backs up his claim.

A report from Wil Granger, KBR’s water quality manager for Iraq, states that non-potable water used for showering was not disinfected. “This caused an unknown population to be exposed to potentially harmful water for an undetermined amount of time,” according to the report. The report also stated the problems occurred all across Iraq and were not confined to Balad.

The lawsuit states there was no formalized training for KBR employees in proper water operations, and the company maintained insufficient documentation about water safety. The suit notes that former KBR employees Ben Carter and Ken May testified at a congressional hearing in January 2006 that KBR used contaminated water from the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. Carter testified that he found the water polluted with sewage and that KBR did not chlorinate it.

The lawsuit states the swimming pools at Balad were also filled with unsafe water.

Eller also accused KBR of serving spoiled, expired and rotten food to the troops, as well as dishes that may have been contaminated with shrapnel.

“Defendants knowingly and intentionally supplied and served food that was well past its expiration date, in some cases over a year past its expiration date,” the lawsuit states. “Even when it was called to the attention of the KBR food service managers that the food was expired, KBR still served the food to U.S. forces.”

The food included chicken, beef, fish, eggs and dairy products, which caused cases of salmonella poisoning, according to the lawsuit.

“KBR prevented their employees from speaking with government auditors and hid employees from auditors by moving them from bases when an audit was scheduled,” the lawsuit states. “Any employees that spoke with auditors were sent to more dangerous locations in Iraq as punishment.”

The lawsuit also accuses KBR of shipping ice in mortuary trucks that “still had traces of body fluids and putrefied remains in them when they were loaded with ice. This ice was served to U.S. forces.”

Eller also accuses KBR of failing to maintain a medical incinerator at Joint Base Balad, which has been confirmed by two surgeons in interviews with Military Times about the Balad burn pit. Instead, according to the lawsuit and the physicians, medical waste, such as needles, amputated body parts and bloody bandages were burned in the open-air pit.

“Wild dogs in the area raided the burn pit and carried off human remains,” the lawsuit states. “The wild dogs could be seen roaming the base with body parts in their mouths, to the great distress of the U.S. forces.”

According to military regulations, medical waste must be burned in an incinerator to prevent anyone from breathing hazardous fumes.

“On at least one occasion, defendants were attempting to improperly dispose of medical waste at an open-air burn pit by backing a truck full of medical waste up to the pit and emptying the contents onto the fire,” the lawsuit states. “The truck caught fire. Defendants’ fraudulent actions were thereby discovered by the military.”

The lawsuit also states that the contractors burned old lithium batteries in the pits, “causing noxious and unsafe blue smoke to drift over the base.”

Military Times has received more than 100 letters from troops saying they were sickened by fumes from the burn pits, which burned plastics, petroleum products, rubber, dining-facility waste and batteries.

This is just more of the same from the administration that sent troops into combat with inadequate body armor and inadequately armored vehicles, and opposed Sen. Jim Webb's 21st Century GI Bill -- that is, before recognizing that opposition was politically damaging and a lost cause, and then took credit for passing the bill.

The last word on torture (hopefully)

What will it take to get proponents of torture to turn off "24" and face reality? Perhaps the leader of an interrogations team assigned to a Special Operations task force in Iraq?

I learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Our policy of torture was directly and swiftly recruiting fighters for al-Qaeda in Iraq. The large majority of suicide bombings in Iraq are still carried out by these foreigners. They are also involved in most of the attacks on U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq. It's no exaggeration to say that at least half of our losses and casualties in that country have come at the hands of foreigners who joined the fray because of our program of detainee abuse. The number of U.S. soldiers who have died because of our torture policy will never be definitively known, but it is fair to say that it is close to the number of lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001. How anyone can say that torture keeps Americans safe is beyond me -- unless you don't count American soldiers as Americans.

But torture makes us feel tough and not afraid. We're supposed to give all that up just because some experienced Special Operations and counterintelligence guy says it violates American principles, doesn't work, inspires fighters to join the enemy and costs lives?

Did I mention that it makes us feel tough and not afraid?

Indicted

Five-deferment Dick and Fredo.

A Willacy County grand jury under District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra returned multi-count indictments Monday against Vice President Dick Cheney, former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, plus several other public officials.

The indictment accuses Cheney and Gonzales of engaging in organized criminal activity. It criticizes Cheney's investment in the Vanguard Group, which holds interests in the private prison companies running the federal detention centers. It accuses Cheney of a conflict of interest and "at least misdemeanor assaults" on detainees by working through the prison companies.

Gonzales is accused of using his position while in office to stop an investigation into abuses at the federal detention centers.

Another indictment charges state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. with profiting from his public office by accepting honoraria from prison management companies.

Also indicted are state District Judges Janet Leal, state District Judge Migdalia Lopez, The GEO Group (formerly Wackenhut Corporation), former U.S. Attorney Mervyn Mosbacher, Gus Garza and Gilberto Lozano.

They all face a stream of criminal charges including abuse of office, profiting from office, and murder.

Stay tuned, this could get much more interesting.

UPDATE: Here's more, about immunity and jursidictional issues.

Voter fraud

For those Republicans looking for cases of voter fraud in battleground states, the chairman of the Penn Hills (Pa.) School Board believes he has found one.

Former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum's right to vote in Penn Hills has been challenged -- and election officials will not count his absentee ballot (or that of his wife) until the matter is resolved, Allegheny County Elections Department director Mark Wolosik confirmed.

Erin Vecchio, chairman of the Penn Hills School Board and chair of the Penn Hills Democratic Party, says she challenged the Santorums' right to vote in Pennsylvania this morning because they really live in Virginia.

Vecchio, who has had a long-running dispute with Santorum over his residency, says the former senator and his family live in "an undisclosed location" in northern Virginia and that his attempt to vote here is "voter fraud."

This stems from a dispute over whether the Penn Hills School District should foot the bill for Santorum's children to attend a cyber charter school while the family lived in Virginia. Read all about it, and about Ricky's efforts to mischaracterize the controversy in the run-up to the ass kicking he took in the '06 election, here.

The bailout plan

Glenn, on the latest plan to save the American economy from collapse, which he points out was formed “largely without any debate and mostly in secret.” There’s so much worth reading there that you’re better off clicking through and reading the whole thing, but here are some passages that sent my Rage-O-Meter off the charts:

We've retroactively created a win-only system where the wealthiest corporations and their shareholders are free to gamble for as long as they win and then force others who have no upside to pay for their losses. Watching Wall St. erupt with an orgy of celebration on Friday after it became clear the Government (i.e., you) would pay for their disaster was literally nauseating, as the very people who wreaked this havoc are now being rewarded.

More amazingly, they're free to walk away without having to disgorge their gains; at worst, they're just "forced" to walk away without any further stake in the gamble. How can these bailouts not at least be categorically conditioned on the disgorgement of ill-gotten gains from those who are responsible? The mere fact that shareholders might lose their stake going forward doesn't resolve that concern; why should those who so fantastically profited from these schemes they couldn't support walk away with their gains? This is "redistribution of wealth" and "government takeover of industry" on the grandest scale imaginable -- the buzzphrases that have been thrown around for decades to represent all that is evil and bad in the world. That's all this is; it's not an "investment" by the Government in any real sense but just a magical transfer of losses away from those who are responsible for these losses to those who aren't.

[...]

The beneficiaries of this week's extraordinary Government schemes aren't just the coincidental recipients of largesse due to some random stroke of good luck. The people on whose behalf these schemes are being implemented -- the true beneficiaries -- are the very same people who have been running and owning our Government -- both parties -- for decades, which is why they have been able to do what they've been doing without interference. They were able to gamble without limit because they control the Government, and now they're having others bear the brunt of their collapse for the same reason -- because the Government is largely run for their benefit.

If there is any "pitchfork moment" -- an episode that understandably would send people into the streets in mass outrage -- it would be this. Nobody really even seems to know how much of these losses "the Government" -- meaning working people who had no part in the profits from these transactions -- is undertaking virtually overnight but it's at least a trillion dollars, an amount so vast it's hard to comprehend, let alone analyze in terms of consequences. The transactions are way too complex even for the most sophisticated financial analysts to understand, let alone value. Whatever else is true, generations of Americans are almost certainly going to be severely burdened in untold ways by the events of the last week -- ones that have been carried out largely without any debate and mostly in secret.

Third, what's probably most amazing of all is the contrast between how gargantuan all of this is and the complete absence of debate or disagreement over what's taking place. It's not just that, as usual, Democrats and Republicans are embracing the same core premises ("this is regrettable but necessary"). It's that there's almost no real discussion of what happened, who is responsible, and what the consequences are. It's basically as though the elite class is getting together and discussing this all in whispers, coordinating their views, and releasing just enough information to keep the stupid masses content and calm.

[...]

Here is the current draft for the latest plan. It's elegantly simple. The three key provisions: (1) The Treasury Secretary is authorized to buy up to $700 billion of any mortgage-related assets (so he can just transfer that amount to any corporations in exchange for their worthless or severely crippled "assets") [Sec. 6]; (2) The ceiling on the national debt is raised to $11.3 trillion to accommodate this scheme [Sec. 10]; and (3) best of all: "Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency" [Sec. 8].

Put another way, this authorizes Hank Paulson to transfer $700 billion of taxpayer money to private industry in his sole discretion, and nobody has the right or ability to review or challenge any decision he makes.

Paul Krugman adds some perspective to this last point.

Even if you have full faith in Henry Paulson, Intrade currently gives John McCain a 48 percent chance of being president. Are you willing to give essentially unlimited discretion over the use of $700 billion — with explicit protection against any review by Congress or the courts — to Phil Gramm?

You might read this and hear echoes of Congress voting to give George Bush authorization to use force at his own discretion, and that’s because Congress seems intent on giving away all of its oversight ability. In short, Congress is legislating itself right out of existence.

Cooperation

Once upon a time,

Sharon Leighow, the governor's spokeswoman, said Palin "doesn't see a need for a formal investigation," but is willing to answer questions.

"The governor has said all along that she will fully cooperate with an investigation and her staff will cooperate as well," Leighow said.

So, of course, today we get word from the Straight Talk Express that

Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin will not cooperate with a legislative inquiry into her firing of an Alaska official, her campaign said, labeling the probe "partisan."

Spokesman Ed O'Callaghan said Monday the investigation had become "tainted" by Democratic state lawmakers targeting Palin, the governor of Alaska who Republican White House hopeful John McCain chose as his running mate late last month.

"I think it's fair to say that the governor is not going to cooperate with that investigation so long as it remains tainted and run by partisan individuals that have a predetermined conclusion," O'Callaghan said.

The bipartisan panel that voted 12-0 to investigate this case has 14 members, four of whom are Democrats. Given that the panel’s vote to investigate was unanimous (although two members apparently did not vote), I fail to see how the “partisan” charge could contain much truth.

Maybe when Palin’s spokesperson said “partisan,” he meant “sexist.” But four members of the panel are women (only one of whom is a Democrat). But if Tina Fey can be sexist, I suppose any woman who is inconvenient to the GOP ticket can be sexist.

Last week Alaska lawmakers voted 5-3 to subpoena Palin's husband Todd Palin in the legislative investigation into whether his wife improperly attempted to fire a state trooper who was her former brother-in-law.

The committee also subpoenaed Palin's chief of staff and deputy chief of staff.

The panel had agreed beforehand however that a subpoena of Sarah Palin herself would not be considered, with the understanding she would agree to an interview by the investigator, retired prosecutor Stephen Branchflower.

I guess it’s time to start considering that subpoena, huh?

Indicted

Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, on seven counts.

Read the indictment here.

Déjà vu

Sound familiar?

A former CIA operative who says he tried to warn the agency about faulty intelligence on Iraqi weapons programs now contends that CIA officials also ignored evidence that Iran had suspended work on a nuclear bomb.

The onetime undercover agent, who has been barred by the CIA from using his real name, filed a motion in federal court late Friday asking the government to declassify legal documents describing what he says was a deliberate suppression of findings on Iran that were contrary to agency views at the time.

The former operative alleged in a 2004 lawsuit that the CIA fired him after he repeatedly clashed with senior managers over his attempts to file reports that challenged the conventional wisdom about weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East. Key details of his claim have not been made public because they describe events the CIA deems secret.

The consensus view on Iran's nuclear program shifted dramatically last December with the release of a landmark intelligence report that concluded that Iran halted work on nuclear weapons design in 2003. The publication of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran undermined the CIA's rationale for censoring the former officer's lawsuit, said his attorney, Roy Krieger.

"On five occasions he was ordered to either falsify his reporting on WMD in the Near East, or not to file his reports at all," Krieger said in an interview.

In court documents and in statements by his attorney, the former officer contends that his 22-year CIA career collapsed after he questioned CIA doctrine about the nuclear programs of Iraq and Iran. As a native of the Middle East and a fluent speaker of both Farsi and Arabic, he had been assigned undercover work in the Persian Gulf region, where he successfully recruited an informant with access to sensitive information about Iran's nuclear program, Krieger said.

The informant provided secret evidence that Tehran had halted its research into designing and building a nuclear weapon. Yet, when the operative sought to file reports on the findings, his attempts were "thwarted by CIA employees," according to court papers. Later he was told to "remove himself from any further handling" of the informant, the documents say.

But I’m sure all the killing the administration can’t wait to start doing in Iran someday will be explained away as the result of “faulty intelligence” and not a predetermined course of action justified by cherry picking intelligence and ignoring information that didn’t support the administration’s war plans.

Spineless chickenshits

The rule of law in this country is a fucking myth, because of Republicans who break the law and cowardly Democrats who make sure there are no consequences for doing so. There are two legal systems in this country: One that levies crushing penalites on the poor, and one that makes sure that people with money and political connections never go to prison. The only reason Jack Abramoff is behind bars is because all of his political friends pretended they never heard of his no-longer-useful ass.

U.S. phone companies would be shielded from potentially billions of dollars in lawsuits under an anti-terror spy measure that appears headed toward approval, congressional sources said on Wednesday.

House of Representatives Democratic Leader Steny Hoyer, a lead negotiator on the bill, said, "We're very close to having an agreement," and a House vote could come as early as Friday.

Democratic and Republican aides and a lobbyist familiar with negotiations said the House would likely approve the measure overwhelmingly. Despite opposition from its top two Democrats, the Senate would then likely give it final approval, clearing the way for President George W. Bush to sign it into law.

That’s it, sell out the country to protect your precious seats in Congress, you cocksuckers.

You know what would be really fucking refreshing? A representative in Congress whose main priority is helping constituents and making this country better instead of simple self-preservation.

Misstated

Why is that word in the lede of the Reuters story about the Senate Intelligence Committee’s finding that the Bush administration lied us into war in Iraq, as though the many lies they told were a series of innocent errors?

President George W. Bush and his top policymakers misstated Saddam Hussein's links to terrorism and ignored doubts among intelligence agencies about Iraq's arms programs as they made a case for war, the Senate intelligence committee reported on Thursday.

Oops.

Statements that Iraq had a partnership with al Qaeda were wrong and unsupported by intelligence, the report said.

Our mistake. Our bad.

It said that Bush's and Cheney's assertions that Saddam was prepared to arm terrorist groups with weapons of mass destruction for attacks on the United States contradicted available intelligence.

How embarrassing!

“Unsupported by intelligence.” “Contradicted available intelligence.” So much for all that bullshit we were fed about intelligence failures, huh?

But “misstated,” even as evidence mounts that the administration’s many, many statements about the threat Iraq posed to the United States were “unsupported by” or “contradicted” intelligence? Why is the media so afraid to call lies lies and liars liars?

War Pigs

Here is another report (an earlier one here) that these fools plan more war on their way out the door.

The George W Bush administration plans to launch an air strike against Iran within the next two months, an informed source tells Asia Times Online, echoing other reports that have surfaced in the media in the United States recently.

Two key US senators briefed on the attack planned to go public with their opposition to the move, according to the source, but their projected New York Times op-ed piece has yet to appear.

The source, a retired US career diplomat and former assistant secretary of state still active in the foreign affairs community, speaking anonymously, said last week that the US plans an air strike against the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The air strike would target the headquarters of the IRGC's elite Quds force.

I’ve thought about why the administration would do something so insane just before leaving office, and all I can come up with is that they are once again doing the bidding of The Base: Creating another rally-around-the-president moment shortly before the November elections that would strengthen the candidate whose hawkish policies most resemble the current office holder (guess whom that would be). In that environment, criticism of the attack wouldn’t play well and would come off sounding cowardly and/or traitorous, the status-quo candidate would ride a wave of patriotism/xenophobia into the White House and Viola! It’s at least four more years of well-heeled private interests raping the poor and depleting the national treasury. At least four more years of no national healthcare, at least four more years of ignoring environmental regulations and pretending that global warming isn’t happening, at least four more years of delaying development of alternative fuel sources, at least four more years of unsafe work conditions in mines, at least four more years of tainted beef recalls, at least four more years of lead paint on children’s toys, at least four more years of solving all of our international problems with bombs, at least four more years of government spies eavesdropping on our calls and reading our e-mail, at least four more years of crumbling national infrastructure, at least four more years of screwing our veterans out of medical and education benefits, at least four more years of jerkoff justices and veto threats that favor of Corporate America at every turn, at least four more years of explanations that SCHIP is bad for the country but social security privatization is good, at least four more years of Pentagon propaganda programs, at least four more years of the Justice Department being used as a weapon against political opponents, at least four more years of not hearing the word “homeless” uttered in the White House, at least four more years of lobbyists writing legislation, and at least four more years of explanations of how deregulation and tax breaks for the rich are the answer to all of our problems.

And all we have to do to protect the positions of people in power is start another war, because the Republican style of governing has once again proved to be such a miserable failure that people have to be either frightened or fooled into supporting its failed policies. But that’s OK, because the people in power don’t mind if a few hundred thousand people have to die so they can keep the party going.

But look on the bright side: Rich people will get even richer.

Ain’t the status quo great?

Attack monkeys

If this report is false, as the White House claims, it means the Israeli official lied. But why would the official do that?

The White House on Tuesday flatly denied an Army Radio report that claimed US President George W. Bush intends to attack Iran before the end of his term. It said that while the military option had not been taken off the table, the Administration preferred to resolve concerns about Iran's push for a nuclear weapon "through peaceful diplomatic means."

Army Radio had quoted a top official in Jerusalem claiming that a senior member in the entourage of President Bush, who concluded a trip to Israel last week, had said in a closed meeting here that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were of the opinion that military action against Iran was called for.

The official reportedly went on to say that "the hesitancy of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice" was preventing the administration from deciding to launch such an attack on the Islamic Republic for the time being.

I didn’t expect to agree with Condi Rice today, but credit where it’s due. I hope the grown-ups prevent the neocons from doing something very, very stupid.

And if the wingnuts think an attack is just the thing to boost John McCain in the polls, they should think again.

KBR

Updating an earlier post, it looks like KBR was warned about problems with the shitty electrical work it was providing the troops at taxpayers’ expense.

In October 2004, the United States Army issued an urgent bulletin to commanders across Iraq, warning them of a deadly new threat to American soldiers. Because of flawed electrical work by contractors, the bulletin stated, soldiers at American bases in Iraq had received severe electrical shocks, and some had even been electrocuted.
[...]
American electricians who worked for KBR, the Houston-based defense contractor that is responsible for maintaining American bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, said they repeatedly warned company managers and military officials about unsafe electrical work, which was often performed by poorly trained Iraqis and Afghans paid just a few dollars a day.

And yet it did nothing, and American troops have been electrocuted.

Since that warning, at least two more American soldiers have been electrocuted in similar circumstances. In all, at least a dozen American military personnel have been electrocuted in Iraq, according to the Pentagon and Congressional investigators.

And yet the Army recently awarded KBR a new contract to provide services to the military in Iraq. At least a dozen troops are dead, and yet the company’s profits triple. And yet company executives aren’t in prison.

But none of this has anything to do with the former CEO of KBR’s until recently parent company, Halliburton. I’m sure most companies have the political juice to get the military, State Department, Pentagon and Department of Justice to look the other way at very credible accusations of looting, gang rapes, providing contaminated drinking water to troops and shoddy electrical work that kills American troops. I’m sure every company without ties to the vice president has no problem sidestepping congressional testimony from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Principal Assistant Responsible for Contracting, who said, “I can unequivocally state that the abuse related to contracts awarded to KBR represents the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed during the course of my professional career.”

Doan done

Don’t let the door hit your Hatch Act-violating ass on the way out, you corrupt, incompetent hack.

The usual suspects

You know how you always said how handy it would be to have all those Republicans convicted of crimes together on one list? Well, now there’s Republican Offenders. It’s kinda like a K-Tel music compilation, but instead of shitty ’80s songs, it’s Republican criminals. And there’s a lot of them.

The torture memo

John Woo’s shameful legacy, in 81 pages.

Part One.
Part Two.

Douchebag of the Week

Douglas Feith, the “fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth.”

“This year I was really a player,” Feith said, thinking back on 2002 and relishing the memory. I asked him whether, in the end, he was at all concerned that the Geneva decision might have diminished America’s moral authority. He was not. “The problem with moral authority,” he said, was “people who should know better, like yourself, siding with the assholes, to put it crudely.”

UPDATE: We have co-winners, courtesy of Darrell Issa.

The California congressman who called the Sept. 11 attacks "simply" a plane crash ran for cover Wednesday under a barrage of ridicule from fellow Republicans, first responders and victims' families.

UPDATE 2: Is there no end to the douchebaggery? Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC):

We spent the night in the Green Zone, in the poolhouse of one of Saddam’s palaces. A little weird, I got to be honest with you. But I felt safe. And so in the morning, I got up early — not that I make this a great habit — but I went to the gym because I just couldn’t sleep and everything else. Well, sure enough, the guard wouldn’t let me in. Said I didn’t have the correct credentials.

It’s 5:00 in the morning. I haven’t had sleep. I was not very happy with this two-bit security guard. So you know, I said, “I want to see your supervisor.” Thirty minutes later, the supervisor wasn’t happy with me, they escort me back to my room. It happens. I guess I didn’t need to work out anyway.