The Crimes of George W. Bush [Video]
9/11, Ari Fleisher, Barack Obama, Bechtel, Bin Laden, Blackwater USA, Broadcatching, Carlyle, CPA, Dan Senor, David addinton, Elliot Abrams, Erik Prince, Extraordinary Rendition. Illegal, FISA, Frodo, Gonzalez, Guantanamo, Halliburton, Iraq, John Ashcroft, John Yoo, Karl Rove, KBR, Kristol, Military Commisions, Paul Bremer, Perle, PNAC, Politics, Rice, Rumsfeld, Scooter Libby, Torture, Truth Commision, Tullycast, U.S. Attorney Scandal, Valerie Plame, Vengeance Cnard, Wall Street, Waterboarding, Wiretapping, WolfowitzFormer White House Spokesman Ari Fleischer Conveniently Forgets About George W. Bush's Favorite Gay Escort : Jeff Gannon / James Dale Guckert
Ari Fleischer, CIA, Gay GOP, George W. Bush, GOPUSA, Howard Kurtz, Jeff Gannon/James Guckert, Joe Wilson, Niger, Politics, Talon News, YellowcakeTHINK PROGRESS has this piece up today mentioning the elusive and shadowy figure- Jeff Gannon..
Here’s an excerpt:
If Bush was relying on Fleischer to screen the “dotcoms and oddballs,” he was poorly served. Take, for example, case of Jeff Gannon, the male escort-turned-White House correspondent for the right-wing news outlet Talon News. The White House press office granted Gannon access to the White House under an assumed name and with no background check. Once Gannon got in the door under Fleischer’s watch in 2003, he was called on by Bush at a press conference in January 2005. Gannon lobbed Bush a softball:
GANNON: Senate Democratic leaders have painted a very bleak picture of the U.S. economy. … Yet in the same breath they say that Social Security is rock solid and there’s no crisis there. … [H]ow are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?
Here’s my piece from 2005:
BY JOHN TULLY
THE LOS ANGELES SUN
FEB 23 2005
A weekend journalism-school reporter, using a fake name, was given access to the President of the United States at White House press briefings before he even worked for any news organization.
He claims that he has seen a confidential, so-called C.I.A. document which reveals the name of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s wife and shows her recommending him for the trip to Niger to investigate yellowcake uranium sales to the Iraqis.
It turns out that Secret Service has been waving James Guckert by the guardhouse for two and a half years and once inside, he became Jeff Gannon. He wrote for a fake website, Talon News, run by Republican strategist Bobby Eberle and the organization GOPUSA.
To understand how something like this could Not be a story, that this could happen to begin with, is to understand how The District of Columbia really runs. However, one can only watch and wait as the laws of physics begin to rear their ugly head. Try as they might and for whatever reason, The Mainstream Media (as good of a description as any) just can’t keep this monster down.
Howard Kurtz, the longtime and wise sage media critic with The Washington Post, trusted by little old Quaker ladies in Cleveland Park D.C. and lobbyists alike, just could not figure out what the big fuss was all about and immediately chalked it up to over-eager WWW types and their preoccupation with the salacious part of the story.
Oh that.The Great Diversion and the reason why non-political junkies in America are apparently not talking about this story is that this fella’ publicly advertised his services as a male prostitute on numerous sites on the Internet and registered and launched numerous gay male pornographic websites.
Really.
CNN’s Aaron Brown, so brilliant in his earlier years on the old ABC overnight news program, pooh-poohed the scandal as a bit of “so what”. On Wolf Blitzer’s “Hard News” program, Mr. Guckert/Gannon was treated almost softly, as if not to upset.
The New York Times finally ran the story, deep in the back pages on Friday, Feb 11th, more than a week after website journalists began to fully reveal this fake journalist’s deceptions.The shockjock mentality came out instantly in the groupthink mainstream media with a curious mix of apathy and frat-boy jokes.
There was no outrage to be outraged over. Meanwhile, writers on web sites like The Daily Kos, David Brock’s Media Matters and John Aravosis’s America Blog, among others, had been doing their own journalism and found out that Mr. Guckert was not who or what he appeared to be. They started their dig after witnessing a press briefing by the President back in late January. A strange reporter asked a clearly partisan question / pronouncement that, among other things, stated that the Democrats were “divorced from reality”.
They got dirt all right.
Columnists Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd finally had to write cute pieces about the mess nearing the end of last week. Katie, Matt, and The Today Show eventually did a quick three- minute story in the first hour last Wednesday. Radio man Don Imus couldn’t get anyone to bite and wondered aloud about the titillating aspect of the thing.
This was now more than ten days since the story had broken, or hadn’t broken. No one was even discussing, outside of the Web, the nasty business of the C.I.A. memo that Mr.Guckert had claimed to have seen or knew about right there on Mr. Blitzer’s show.
Links to web sites where Mr. Guckert solicited clients for sex were widely available at the very same time Mr. Blitzer was tripping all over himself to give Mr. Guckert an Easypass.Ultimate Washington insider Mary Matalin, Vice President Cheney’s sometimes consultant, told Imus that she just wished Ms. Dowd would just come in from the cold and get with the program.
Why did President Bush and Scott McClellan, the President’s spokesman, call on Mr. Guckert/Gannon so often in those two and a half years and how could other reporters not write about Talon News and GOPUSA’s illegitimacy? Veterans of the White House beat sometimes don’t see a question for years. Was he a plant?
But just like the high school sophomores that they are, the Washington Press Corps have hemmed and hawed and giggled their way for weeks now through a real-live genuine scandal unfurling at the White House. Waving their collective finger, they dismissed the whole affair in full. It was simply The Bloggers and their liberal retribution for the Rather/CBS assassination and a lurid fascination with the X-rated angle thrown in for good measure.
Now the simply idiotic Bush-Tapes story, along with a long weekend and a brilliant fake-outrage campaign over a congressman’s comments about Karl Rove, is threatening to bury forever a story that the entire profession of journalism would like to pretend was never born to begin with.
Everyone seems to be looking around at each other and tsk-tsking the lack of outrage on each other’s part, as if to say “This is terrible -someone do some real reporting”.
“Someone did – as Mr. Bush would say, on the “Internets”.
Stay Tuned.
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Before Larry Was The Cable Guy
StoriesAbandoned Horses Are On The Rise
Economy, Horses, Livestock, Poverty, Working Poor
Jack Noble was pretty sure what he would see when he arrived to check out reports of horses abandoned on a rural road in Oregon’s Willamette Valley in September.Noble, field operations manager for the state’s Department of Agriculture, found 11 filthy, sickly and starving horses. “They were just let loose, and they were severely malnourished,” he said.
Horse abandonment is on the rise across the USA, livestock and agricultural officials say. As the economy worsens and the cost of feeding and caring for horses rises, more people are abandoning their animals into the wild, where many starve and die.
No national numbers are available, but there are “definitely thousands of them out there,” said Dave Duquette, an Oregon horse trainer and president of the United Horsemen’s Front.
“Folks have to decide whether to feed the kids or feed the horses,” said Dr. Kerry Rood, a veterinarian at Utah State University.
In Wyoming, there have been “huge increases” in the number of domestic horses abandoned, said Jim Schwartz, director of the Wyoming Livestock Board.
“It used to be six or eight per year. This year so far we’ve had at least 41,” said Lee Romsa, Wyoming’s brand commissioner. In Nevada, officials have found 63 abandoned horses in the northern part of the state alone in 2008 — an unprecedented situation, said Ed Foster, spokesman for the state Department of Agriculture.
The horses Noble found were sold at auction, surprising considering their condition, he said.
The responsibility for dealing with abandoned domestic horses generally falls to a state’s department of agriculture or a local animal control organization, Rood said. Private animal rescue organizations often become involved, he said.
The sale of horses is becoming “less and less” of an option, said Patricia Evans, equine specialist at Utah State. Auctioneers screening horses are turning them away if they don’t think they will bring enough money, she said.
Rood said another part of the abandonment problem is the closure of the USA’s last horse slaughterhouse last year in Illinois. Slaughtering provided owners with a final option, he said.
Bruce Friedrich of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) said closure of American horse slaughterhouses was a necessary end to a “horrifically abusive” practice.
Many horse owners believe their animals, if released into the wild, will be adopted by wild herds. But “the wild horse herd will reject them in the most violent manner,” Foster said. “It ends up being a bad ending for that horse.”
DeLong reports for the Reno Gazette-Journal
Yahoo to Shorten Logs of User Activity to Three Months
Computers, Internet, Tech, web 2.0, Yahoo
WASHINGTON (AP) – Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) (YHOO) said Wednesday that it will shorten the amount of time that it retains data about its users’ online behavior – including Internet search records – to three months from 13 months and expand the range of data that it “anonymizes” after that period.
The company’s new privacy policy comes amid mounting concerns among regulators and lawmakers from Washington to Europe about how much data big Internet companies are collecting on their users and how that information is being used. Yahoo’s announcement also ratchets up the pressure on rivals Google Inc. (GOOG) (GOOG) and Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) (MSFT) to follow its lead.
In September, Google said it would “anonymize,” or mask, the numeric Internet Protocol (IP) addresses on its server logs after nine months, down from a previous retention period of 18 months. And Microsoft, which currently keeps user data for 18 months, said last week it would support an industry standard of six months.
Under Yahoo’s new policy, the company will strip out portions of users’ IP addresses, alter small tracking files known as “cookies” and delete other potential personally identifiable information after 90 days in most cases. In cases involving fraud and data security, the company will anonymize the data after six months.
Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo also said it will expand the scope of data that it anonymizes to encompass not only search engine logs, but also page views, page clicks, ad views and ad clicks. That information is used to personalize online content and advertising.
Yahoo will begin implementing the new policy next month and says it will be effective across all the company’s services by mid-2010.
Anne Toth, vice president of policy and head of privacy for Yahoo, said the company is adopting the new policy to build trust with users and differentiate it from its competitors. Yahoo also hopes to take the issue of data retention “off the table” by showing that Internet companies can regulate themselves, Toth said.
European Union regulators have pressured Yahoo, Google and Microsoft over the past year to shorten the amount of time that they hold onto user data. And Congress has begun asking questions about the extent to which Internet and telecommunications companies track where their users go online and use that information to target personalized advertising.
Edward Markey, D-Mass., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, praised Yahoo for setting a new standard on privacy protection and said Google, Microsoft and other companies will now be compared against that standard.
Ari Schwartz, vice president of the Center for Democracy & Technology, a civil liberties group, agreed that Yahoo’s new policy is “step in the right direction.” He added, however, that he would like to see more clarity – and more standardization – from the industry about what it does with Internet users’ data. He noted, for instance, that while some companies delete full IP addresses, other delete only parts of IP addresses or simply encrypt them.
British Troops Are Like: "We're Out of Iraq, Cheerio"
Al-Maliki, Baghdad, Basra, Britain, George W. Bush, Iraq, Old Europe(CNN) — British troops will begin leaving Iraq in May, more than six years after joining the U.S.-led invasion that ousted former dictator Saddam Hussein, Britain and Iraq announced Wednesday.
The British mission will wrap up by the end of May, with the last troops withdrawing over the next two months, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his Iraqi counterpart, Nuri al-Maliki, said in a joint statement during Brown’s visit Wednesday to Baghdad.
The pair said the partnership between the two countries would continue. Brown — on his fourth trip to Iraq as prime minister — said British troops had made a huge contribution and given people an economic stake in the future of Iraq.
Brown’s previously unannounced visit comes three days after a similar trip by President Bush, who was forced to duck when an Iraqi journalist threw a pair of shoes at him during an appearance Sunday with al-Maliki.
Britain was the leading U.S. ally during the invasion of Iraq, and still has about 4,000 troops based outside the southern city of Basra. About 140,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq.
Besides the U.S. and Britain, five nations — Albania, Australia, El Salvador, Estonia and Romania — maintain fewer than 2,000 troops total in Iraq, according to the Multi-National Force-Iraq Web site.
In their statement, Brown and al-Maliki said: “The role played by the UK combat forces is drawing to a close. These forces will have completed their tasks in the first half of 2009 and will then leave Iraq.”
On Tuesday, the Iraqi council of ministers agreed to a new resolution allowing troops to remain in the country until the end of July. It sets the end of May as the final date for combat operations.
Speaking at a press conference after the talks, Brown said: “We have agreed today that the mission will end no later than May 31 next year. Our troops will be coming home within the next two months [after that].
“The biggest reduction will be at the end part of the period we are talking about.”
Brown added: “It is important to remember we have been engaged in the most difficult and challenging of work: the tasks of overthrowing a dictatorship, the task of building a democracy for the future and defending it against terrorism.
“We have made a huge contribution and of course given people an economic stake in the future of Iraq. We leave Iraq a better place.
“I am proud of the contribution British forces have made. They are the pride of Britain and the best in the world.”
Al-Maliki confirmed that the agreement included a provision for the Iraqi government to request an extension of the British military presence. However, both leaders indicated that it was not expected to be used.
Like the United States, Britain has been negotiating with the Iraqi government on the future of its military presence there. Ahead of Brown’s arrival, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said those talks were making “good progress.”
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, chief of the defense staff, is accompanying Brown on the visit.
Also Wednesday in Baghdad, a double bombing in a commercial district killed 18 people and wounded dozens of others, with police officers among the casualties, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said.
The first explosion was a car bomb, followed by a roadside bomb that targeted traffic police responding to the initial blast, the official said. Three of the dead were police officers, the official said. Another 52 people, including eight police, were wounded.
Banks Keeping Mum on TARP Bailout Funds; Only Morgan Stanley Coming Clean
ABC, AIG, Banking, Finance, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, TARP, Treasury, Verizon, Wall Street
Morgan Stanley Is One Bank That Cites a Loan From TARP Money
Other Financial Banks Including Goldman Sachs and CitiGroup Keep Mum on How They Are Using TARP Cash
By CHARLES HERMAN, DAN ARNALL, LAUREN PEARLE and ZUNAIRA ZAKI
Dec. 17, 2008—
Banks that were rescued with billions of dollars in public funds have, in most cases, refused to provide specifics about how they have used or intend to use the money.
ABC News asked 16 of the banks that have received money from the Treasury Department’s $700 billion Trouble Asset Relief Program the same two questions: How has your financial institution used the money, and how much has your financial institution allocated to bonuses and incentives this year?
To read the banks’ responses, click here.
Goldman Sachs reported Tuesday that it paid $10.93 billion in compensation for the year, which includes salaries and bonuses, payroll taxes and benefits. That is down 46 percent from a year ago. Goldman Sachs received $10 billion from the Treasury.
“Bonuses across Goldman Sachs will be down significantly this year,” a bank representative told ABC News. The spokesman refused to disclose the size of the bonus pool or how much of the compensation fund of $10.93 billion was planned for bonuses.
“We do not break down the components of compensation; however, most of that number was not bonuses,” he said. Goldman Sachs added, “TARP money is not being paid to employee compensation. It’s been and will continue to be used to facilitate client activity in the capital markets.”
Goldman Sachs has pointed out that seven of its senior executives were forgoing bonuses this year. The company also reported Tuesday that it lost $2.1 billion in the last quarter.
“It looks like Goldman Sachs is treating this as business as usual,” said compensation expert James Reda. “They are taking our taxpayer money. They should be able to account for that money.
“What’s missing from this report is the exact amount of bonuses that were paid,” said Reda. He later added, “They’re hiding the ball.”
Fred Cannon, chief equity strategist with Keefe Bruyette and & Woods, an investment bank that specializes exclusively in financial services, said, “It is difficult to say what the TARP funds are directly used for. In terms of compensation, while TARP funds may not directly pay for compensation, the funds do provide additional overall cash to the companies.”
When pressed for what the TARP money was being used for, Goldman Sachs replied that it is spent to “facilitate client activity in the capital markets.”
Only One Bank Cited a Loan It Made
Of the 16 banks that were contacted by ABC News and asked how they were spending the hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars, only one bank pointed to a specific loan that it made with the cash. That was a $17 billion loan that Morgan Stanley made to Verizon Wireless.
Morgan Stanley, which received $10 billion from TARP, released its quarterly finances today. The bank announced a dramatic and larger-than-predicted $2.37 billion quarterly loss but an overall year-end profit of $1.59 billion. That was down 49 percent from last year. The bank’s stock price dropped 72 percent this year.
In response to an ABC News email request, Morgan Stanley public information officer Mark Lake confirmed that bonuses are down “approximately 50 percent.”
Besides the Verizon loan cited by Morgan Stanley, the banks declined to detail how they were using the federal funds.
“Tarp money doesn’t go into bonuses,” Lake said, in an email to ABC News.
Wells Fargo said that of the $25 billion it received, it “cannot provide any foward-looking guidance on lending for this quarter [and] Intend[s] to use the Capital Purchase Program funds to make more loans to credit-worthy customers.”
More typical was the generic response by the Bank of New York Mellon, which said of the fortune it had banked in public moneys: “Using the $3 billion to provide liquidity to the credit markets.”
Congress and fiscal watchdogs have been frustrated and upset that the banks do not have to account for the way they are spending these publicly financed bonanzas.
The U.S. Treasury has spent or committed $335 billion of the $700 billion in the TARP fund in an attempt to get banks back in the lending business and to unfreeze the nation’s credit markets.
Last week Congress was angered to learn that giant insurance company American Insurance Group, which received $150 billion in TARP cash to stay afloat, was paying more than $100 million in “retention bonuses” to 168 employees.
That revelation prompted Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., to complain, “It’s absolutely and incredibly wrong that we don’t have more transparency.”
All the Banks That Got TARP Cash Indicate They Are Paying Bonuses
While several banks said that its top executives would skip bonuses this year or its compensation pool was smaller this year than in past years, all indicated that some end-of-year compensation was in the works.
When asked how much the banks were paying out in bonuses and whether TARP funds would be used to finance them, most of the banks did not make such a declaration.
“Incentive compensation not yet allocated,” was as far as JP Morgan Chase, which received $25 billion from TARP, would go.
Bank of America, which got $15 billion from TARP, said only, “Have reduced the incentive targets by more than half. Final awards have not been determined.”
State Street Bank ruled out using TARP to reward its top officers.
“Will not use any of the proceeds from the TARP Capital Purchase Program to fund our bonus pool or executive compensation,” the bank insisted.
Cannon said the banks are being very conservative with their money.
After reviewing the statements the banks provided to ABC News he said, “The banks are expressing good intention in line with the good intention of the program. However, the answers from the bank belie the current challenge; the economy is deteriorating rapidly and making good loans, with strong underwriting into an economy that is falling apart is very difficult.”
ABC News’ MaryKate Burke contributed to this report.
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Casinos Not Feeling So Lucky These Days
Atlantic City, Casinos, Vegas
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) – Juan Jimenez’s job at the casino wasn’t the most glamorous one in the place.
But picking up cigarette butts, vacuuming dirt from carpets and shampooing stains from spilled drinks (and other, much worse substances) allowed him to bring his family from the Dominican Republic, buy a small house and claim a tiny slice of the American Dream.
In October, his luck ran out.
After 15 years at Bally’s, Jimenez was laid off, joining thousands of other casino employees in Atlantic City, Las Vegas and other hotspots around the country whose jobs have been eliminated in recent months because people are gambling less in this recession.
“This Christmas is going to be a lot like the first Christmas I had in this country,” said the 62-year-old Jimenez. “I didn’t have a job, I didn’t have any money, no anything. The only difference is now I have a mortgage and bills.”
Atlantic City has been hit particularly hard; this will be the second straight year of declining casino revenue after 28 consecutive years of increases. The industry’s woes began when slots parlors opened in the Philadelphia suburbs two years ago, stealing many of Atlantic City’s customers, and worsened in recent months, first when gas prices shot up, then when the economy nose-dived.
For the first 11 months of this year, Atlantic City casinos won $4.2 billion from gamblers, down 6.7 percent from the same period last year.
That has forced casinos to slash payrolls. As of Nov. 30, there were 39,137 people working at the city’s 11 casinos, down nearly 1,500 from the same period in 2007. Not all those cuts were due to layoffs; they include resignations and seasonal jobs.
Last month, the city’s most successful casino, the Borgata, laid off 400 employees. The four casinos run here by Harrah’s Entertainment laid off several hundred earlier this year, and still more layoffs took place at Resorts Atlantic City.
“We’ve had downturns before, but we’ve never seen anything like this,” said Donna DeCaprio, secretary-treasurer of UNITE-HERE Local 54, the union that represents casino cleaning staffs, food-and-drink workers and other employees.
The union held a two-day seminar this week for laid-off workers, giving them information on job training and the network of public and private services available to them. The neediest got diapers, infant formula, winter coats and supermarket debit cards.
Steve Norton, a gambling industry veteran who helped open New Jersey’s first casino in 1978, said the casinos have learned they are subject to the same business cycles as other industries.
“We’re starting to see that we’re not bulletproof,” he said. “In the early days, we didn’t think that could ever happen. It definitely is a new reality.”
In Las Vegas, about 6,000 union employees have been laid off or had hours reduced, according to the culinary workers union, which is bracing for more cutbacks.
Harrah’s, which runs eight Las Vegas casinos, has laid off nearly 1,800 workers this year. Las Vegas Sands Corp. (LVS) cut more than 200 employees last week from its work force of 10,000 at the Venetian and Palazzo hotel-casinos on the Strip, after shedding 50 workers three weeks before.
Mississippi’s 30 casinos on the Gulf Coast and the Mississippi River are coping not only with the national recession, but with the effects of hurricane-related closings in September. They have laid off workers amid a 3 percent decline in revenue this year.
Connecticut’s two huge Indian-run casinos, Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, have seen slot machine revenue fall 5 to 7 percent, and have eliminated more than 1,300 jobs through layoffs and attrition over the past year.
James Howard spent 14 years as a food and beverage worker at the Atlantic City Hilton Casino Resort before being laid off last week.
“I didn’t have any idea this was coming,” said the 54-year-old Howard. “It’s very upsetting. Each year at Christmas, we would have parties to celebrate the season. This year, we’re trying to figure out where our next meal is coming from. It’s like this all over the city.”
In between trips to the unemployment office, Howard has looked – unsuccessfully – for jobs stocking shelves at stores in between trips to the unemployment office. He and his wife have already burned through their meager savings and are grateful their landlord has been understanding about late rent. But they know that won’t last forever.
Howard will be giving his wife only one present for Christmas this year.
“My love,” he said. “That’s about it. They can’t take that from me.”
The New York Herald Sun 