politics

America the Corrupt Part II

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The Center for American Progress said it better than I could:
SCANDAL-TIED CIA EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR RESIGNS
CIA Executive Director Kyle “Dusty” Foggo “announced his resignation in an e-mail message to agency staff” yesterday, leading to further speculation that the recent CIA upheaval is “linked to the broadening bribe probe centered on disgraced former California GOP Congressman Randall ‘Duke’ Cunningham.” Foggo’s connections to Cunningham-linked defense contractors Brent Wilkes and Mitchell Wade are the focus of an investigation by the CIA inspector general, first made public in March; yesterday, the Washington Post revealed that the FBI is also investigating contracts negotiated under Foggo. (One of Brent Wilkes’ companies, Archer Logistics, won a large contract to provide supplies to CIA agents in Afghanistan and Iraq despite having “no previous experience with such work, having been founded a few months before the contract was granted.”)
Meanwhile, an “authoritative senior FBI official” told Congressional Quarterly that resigning CIA Director Porter Goss has not yet been interviewed by the FBI. “We’re not at his door yet…not at his doorstep.” Foggo is also the highest-ranking CIA official to admit he attended the controversial poker parties thrown by Wilkes where prostitutes were sometimes present. (Foggo even “occasionally hosted the poker parties at his house in northern Virginia,” though he denies ever seeing prostitutes at the gatherings.) Over the weekend, Newsweek magazine revealed the identity of another former CIA official — previously known only as “Nine Fingers” — who reportedly attended the poker parties. The official, Brant Bassett, was the staff director of the House Intelligence Committee while Porter Goss was committee chairman.
Something smells and it isn’t the stench from the neighborhoods in N.O. that still haven’t been cleared…

politics

America the Corrupt

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Today, Porter Goss, the head of the CIA, resigned suddently or abruptly quit (depending on how you view it) for no apparant reason. News sources are saying it might be because his role and importance have been diminished in the post 9/11 restructuring (as now the head of the CIA answers to the National Intelligence Director – currently John D. Negroponte) or because people who were going to resign at the end of Bush’s term were encouraged to do so now as part of the big “shakeup” that the WS is currently undergoing.
I call “bullshit” and instead would like to point everyone to the Center for American Progress’s report from yesterday titled “Sex, Lies and Government Contracts. It talked about how Congressman Duke Cunningham’s record 2.4 million dollars in bribes and his resulting 8 year prison sentence may be the mere tip of the iceberg in terms of Washington corruption. It also mentioned a Harper’s magazine report that said that “under intense scrutiny by the FBI are current and former lawmakers on Defense and Intelligence committees — including one person who now holds a powerful intelligence post.” The C for AP says that “CIA Director Porter Goss is perhaps the only individual who fits such a description.” And now he’s gone today? Something smells rotten to me.

politics

Leaky Bush

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It seems that either Bush hasn’t been honest to the American public again or Scooter Libby, a man whose very career was founded on following orders and listening to his bosses, is now totally lying about those very same people to save his own skin. I somehow feel that is unlikely. While I’m not surprised, I’m certainly disgusted. How can one raise children to tell the truth when most leaders and role models they are told to look up to lie on a constant basis?