The 2006 State of the Union - a Preview..?
check it out...
posted by Patrick J. Fitzgerald at 1/29/2006
Jan 29, 2006
About Me
- Name: Patrick J. Fitzgerald
- Location: U.S. Attorney On Assignment - WDC, Illinois, United States
Think Globally Prosecute Locally - I grew up in Flatbush, kept my nose clean, went to law school. Now that I am in Chicago and D.C. I have found that the rampant graft and corruption to be a travesty - a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham. ---Favorite quote --- "Conditional love is an oxymoron." - Yours truly
Previous Posts
- Glory Road...
- TGIF...
- Public Integrity..?
- Cut Bait..?
- ...
- Michael Moore Throws A Strike...
- Molding Our Youth...
- Rogue Administration...
- Ba-Dump-Bump...
- My IRA...
13 Comments:
Nice try but no candy for you. The State of the Union Address will be like the others ......! Now I was glad to hear you were joking about that last blog comment. Fitz I wonder if Bushie will try to clean up the failure with Hamas winning by a landslide. As for him on TV the rating will be low as usual and people will get the quick vision of the lies. I saw the Pelican brief last night and I know who you could hire as Darby Shaw. Ya I'm thinking to much again. Enjoy today and if you get a chance rent the DVD of Harry Potter it was GREAT and ask your staff to rent it too. My daughter Peaches got me a DVD with all three movies on one DVD now thats progress.
The fake president in the video looks more confident than the real president. I really doubt that people would be interested in hearing the President's State of the Union address. Unfortunately, the President's speech is at the same day of the announcement of the Oscars. People will be buzzing about whether Brokeback Mountain received Oscar nominations than hearing the President's same-o, same-o speech. People will probably get the highlights of his speech in the evening news.. Otherwise, nothing of Bush's speech will change.. If I were Bush, I would be really worry about the American people's confidence and trust in him.:)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11079547/site/newsweek/
These Justice Department lawyers, backed by their intrepid boss Comey, had stood up to the hard-liners, centered in the office of the vice president, who wanted to give the president virtually unlimited powers in the war on terror. Demanding that the White House stop using what they saw as farfetched rationales for riding rough-shod over the law and the Constitution, Goldsmith and the others fought to bring government spying and interrogation methods within the law. They did so at their peril; ostracized, some were denied promotions, while others left for more comfortable climes in private law firms and academia. Some went so far as to line up private lawyers in 2004, anticipating that the president's eavesdropping program would draw scrutiny from Congress, if not prosecutors. These government attorneys did not always succeed, but their efforts went a long way toward vindicating the principle of a nation of laws and not men.
http://img500.imageshack.us/my.php?image=agejan2vq.gif
The above linked map shows the president's approval ratings by state, age, etc. It is still high in a few states, including Mississippi and Alabama.
While the way the polls are conducted may exclude the voices of many African-American voters in these states, I hope that your voices will be heard loudly in the next election. These are two states where the block of black votes can swing the tide from red to blue. Go blue!
lets give him another subject to talk about. Perhaps he'll do better explaining yet another illegal action that he managed to hide for awhile. Sounds like a Abramoff deal to me!
Releases & advisories: Report: Yates Oil and Gas Campaign Contributions, Influence Linked to Bush Administration’s Reversal on Otero Mesa
Monday, 31 May 2004
Report: Yates Oil and Gas Campaign Contributions, Influence
Linked to Bush Administration's Reversal on Otero Mesa
Quarter Million Dollars in Recent Yates-Related Campaign
Contributions to GOP Found; Yates Continues to Retain Lobbying Firm
That Pays Ethics-Embattled Griles at Interior.
WASHINGTON, D.C. and ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.
The January
2004 decision by the Bush Administration's Bureau of Land Management
(BLM) to "suddenly and illegally eliminate dozens of environmental
protections" from an oil and gas drilling plan for New Mexico's
pristine 1.2 million Otero Mesa desert region will directly benefit
and came about following direct requests for such action from the
privately held Yates family petroleum empire, a major campaign
contributor to President George Bush and Republican groups,
according to a new report from the nonprofit Campaign to Protection
America's Lands (CPAL).
In tracing the spider web linking the Yates' agenda and favorable
Bush Administration decisions on Otero Mesa, the CPAL report
identifies a total of nearly $250,000 in Yates family and employee
contributions to national Republican groups during 2000-2004. The
president of the Yates company working to break into Otero Mesa has
been a generous donor to the Republican National Committee and
hosted Dick Cheney at a high dollar fundraiser.
The report also finds that embattled Department of the Interior
Deputy Secretary J. Steven Griles, who faces multiple ethics
allegations for his failure to recuse himself in dealings with
former clients, continues to be paid $284,000 per year by National
Environmental Strategies (NES), a lobby firm that still counts
another of the Yates companies as a paying client. Yates Petroleum
paid Griles as a lobbyist to press its case on matters similar to
the Otero Mesa process in the days just before Griles' confirmation,
and Griles' calendar records show that Griles personally met with
top BLM officials about Otero Mesa in December of 2002. Griles is
the chief DOI point person for energy development in the Western
U.S.
Campaign to Protect America's Lands Director Peter Altman said: It
is one thing to suspect that there is a real 'appearance problem'
when it comes to campaign contributions and insider influence. But
it is rare to find so much blatant evidence. What we uncovered
connects the dots between the Yates agenda and the Bush
Administration's decision-making process on Otero Mesa. These people
were not just content to 'wire' the process from the outside with
campaign contributions. They also had things 'wired' on the inside
with the biggest of all the heavyweights who possibly could weigh in
on the Otero Mesa question."
Nada Culver, an attorney with the BLM Action Center with The
Wilderness Society, said: "BLM's abrupt abandonment in January of
proposed restrictions on future oil and gas development was such a
radical and unprecedented modification of the original plan that by
the end of the month New Mexico state agencies that had previously
supported the plan had submitted formal protests. Otero Mesa is an
exceptional place, including fragile desert grasslands that are home
to endangered and at-risk species and critical ground water
reserves. The drastic changes from the draft plan essentially remove
protections for these values and change the focus of the entire plan
to favor oil and gas development. It is especially disturbing that
the BLM completed this "about face" without permitting public
review, without advising the agencies already signed on to the
draft, and without performing necessary environmental analysis."
KEY REPORT FINDINGS
The CPAL report, entitled Cash, Connections and Concessions: The
Yates Family, the Bush Administration and the Selling of Otero Mesa,
states: "In January 2004, the Bush Administration's Bureau of Land
Management suddenly and illegally eliminated dozens of environmental
protections from a plan to manage new oil and gas development on
southern New Mexico's Otero Mesa. The Bureau's reversals, coming
after more than five years of state and public participation in
defining necessary protections stand to benefit one company and the
family that owns it more than any other - the Harvey Yates Company,
owned and run by members of the powerful Yates family, long-time
political affiliates with members of the Bush Administration and
major financial supporters of the President's party. "
Major findings in the CPAL report include:
• A pattern of substantial campaign contributions. Yates family
members and their companies donated $145,000 to the Republican
National Committee from 2000–2004 – including $90,000 in soft money
directly from the Yates Petroleum company to the Republican National
Committee. In 2002, employees of the Yates Petroleum Company were
the largest donors of political money in New Mexico, outranking even
the state's Republican Campaign Committee with $101,066 in
contributions. The president of Harvey E. Yates Company (HEYCO),
which has the biggest stake in Otero Mesa, has donated tens of
thousands of dollars a year to the RNC.
• Cozy ties with Interior's top Western energy development official.
Yates oil interests also enjoy an extremely close working
relationship to embattled Department of the Interior (DOI) Deputy
Secretary J. Steven Griles, who faces multiple ethics allegations
for his failure to recuse himself in dealings with former clients.
In 2001, Yates Petroleum paid Steven Griles more than $40,000 to
lobby the Bureau of Land Management on the company's behalf to
"secure funding for BLM staffing" – which typically means making
sure that someone at BLM will create or update a management plan to
allow oil or gas companies to drill. Yates and Griles remain
financially connected, though now through an intermediary. Griles is
currently being paid $284,000 per year by National Environmental
Strategies (NES), a lobby firm founded by former Republican National
Committee chairman Haley Barbour and at which Griles was a senior
partner. NES still counts Yates as a client. The ongoing NES
payments to Griles are part of an ethically suspect arrangement
arrived at to buy out the value of the clientele that Griles left
behind when he went to work for DOI. In December of 2002, Griles met
with Jim Huges (Deputy Director of BLM) and Con Lass (Chief of Staff
for BLM Director Kathleen Clarke) to discuss the "Otero Oil & Gas
Issue".
• Close relationship with the Vice President. Dick Cheney, who is
well known for his extensive ties to the energy industry, appears to
have relationships and concerns for the Yates family and their
companies. In 2002, HEYCO President George Yates held a fundraiser
featuring Cheney, including a $250-a-plate dinner followed by
photographs with the Vice President for those who contributed
$1,000. As a congressman, Cheney backed the Department of Interior's
tardy response after Yates Petroleum destroyed federally protected
lands by bulldozing through the Salt Lake Wilderness in order to
gain access to an oil lease.
Steve Capra, associate director, New Mexico Wilderness Alliance,
said: "This is not just an issue that gets the conservation
community upset. In defending New Mexicans against the Bush
Administrations public lands give-away, Governor Bill Richardson
joined an unusual coalition of ranchers, conservationists, religious
groups, businesses and an overwhelming number of average New
Mexicans seeking to protect Otero Mesa from unnecessary oil and gas
development. Otero Mesa is America's wildest remaining grassland,
home to many rare and important wildlife species. It is also home to
several ranching families, some of whom have lived on this land for
five generations and an underground aquifer that could supply water
to southern New Mexico for the next 100 years. That's why on January
31st, in front of a crowd of hundreds of cheering New Mexicans,
Governor Richardson himself drew a line in the sand of the
Chihuahuan desert, pledging to protect Otero Mesa and defying the
Bush Administration's Interior Department to step over it."
As the CPAL report points out: "The extent to which the
Administration's fundraisers and friends get special treatment
highlights the hypocrisy of the Bush Administration's frequent
pledges to public process and participation. Interior Secretary Gale
Norton has repeated a mantra she calls the Four C's: 'Consultation,
Cooperation, Communication – all in the service of Conservation.'
But considering how one politically connected family and their oil
companies succeeded in overcoming the public process and local
opinion, and the BLM without warning reversed years of work and
planning to the Yates' benefit, the principles which appear to be
guiding the development of plans for Otero Mesa would be better
labeled as Cash, Connections and Concessions."
Altman concluded: "This decision wasn't about meeting energy needs,
or just the basic favoritism that the Bush administration repeatedly
shows for his colleagues in the oil and gas business, or appropriate
stewardship of public lands. It was about decision-making that
exclusively benefits key donors and friends of the administration to
the detriment of every other stakeholder in the process, not to
mention Otero Mesa itself. It is one of the grossest displays of
this administration's use of raw power to advance the profits of
their friends and allies at the expense of everyone else."
Signed: Veggieburger
He's already failed his speech whatever it is Fitz,
this is going to be an entertaining HBO hour if anyone tapes it......
2006 State of the Union speech ..
.. does any one believe any thing that extrudes, protrudes, exudes from his mouth any more?
There are so many lies, deceits, deliberate manipulations, misperceptions you either watch in disgust and yell at the TV screen; watch something else entirely;
or
deliberately leave your home and take a walk with the dog, knowing that tomorrow you can read the script without having to watch this spinmeister weave yet another string of lies.
This President receives the lowest respect of Presidents in recent history .. perhaps we have taken too much, in too little time, from too many people who have too much to gain and who continue to feed the oil industry, big business and squeeze every dollar from the American common man/woman.
PJF: you said this might could be your best month ever. . . we certainly hope so.
You have provided hope where there has been little, and justice where the Government has deliberately hoodwinked/failed us and the world.
I'm still awaiting a very very Merry Fitzmas to take down the tyranny
the treachery
the subversion of the
Constitution
and the very hope of millions of Americans.
Bluewild --
still hoping Fitz will indict Rove, Cheney . .
and indict/impeach Bush on the
Plamegate
that is the head of the octopus.
Without the multi-headed hydra at work, it all comes tumbling down.
Well, a congratulations is in order to Michael Mason the FBI director assistant. A well derserved promotion to great person! Mason was mentioned on one of Fitz's postings:
Mason Moves Up: Michael Mason, the assistant FBI director who ran the Washington, D.C. field office and was the top agent overseeing the anthrax mail mystery, has been transferred indefinitely to headquarters where he is the acting executive assistant director of administration heading up the agency's reorganization and its technology improvements.
One FBI official said that with a number of high-level departures -- including FBI Director Robert Mueller's top intelligence aide and his criminal investigations chief -- Mason's assignment likely will become permanent. The move makes Mason the highest-ranking African American in the FBI's history.
I am telling you pictures of him sitting next to Jack at a meeting in the WH is perfecto.. better then Monica's blue dress stain and the hugs in her beret.
We need proof that he's got major ties to Jack and I don't care how many photo's W takes a damn day with people you pay top $$ for them... to get there.
Spying on us.. if they can determine he wasn't just listening to Al Queda..
oh, the lies.
AND to hear the damn claps at the SOTU well I am getting sick just thinking about how this man goes to sleep at night.
Bluewild,
Michael Mason is not heavily involved in the Abramoff case. He was involved in the plea bargain with Abramoff with tax fraud, mail fraud etc. There was press conference a couple of weeks ago with the Justice Dept, IRS, and including Michael Mason on the plea bargain of Abramoff. Mason's job does coincide with Abramoff's case since his career includes nacotics violation, public corruption, violent crimes, etc. But, Mason is not on the team of prosecutors. Mason's new position will be highly responsible for reorganization and tachnology improvement (which FBI is lacking the technology) in the FBI. Remember, there has been major problems in the FBI (as well as the CIA) with people departing their positions. I think Mason is the person to bring in quality and good employees to the FBI. There hasn't been many African-Americans with that high position.
Finally, the following people are involved in the Abramoff case and working with Hillman:
Stephanie Evans: Trial Attorney, Tax Division
Paul E. Pelletier: Fraud Session
Mary Butler: Trial Attorney
Guy Singer: Trial Attorney
Bruce Salad: Criminal Enforcement
Mason's new position is far different from Hillman's position. Hillman was the lead prosecutor in Abramoff case whereas Mason works in the FBI division. ( Here is a FYI for you: the lead person in the Enron Task Force, Sean Berkowitz, was hired by Fitz. Let's hope Berkowitz nail Lay and Skilling tomorrow at the trial). Also, is Mason going to leave the case of Abramoff case? I don't think so. I think that he may have a person overseeing the case. But, I think he may be still involved in the case. (Let's hope so!) I hope this information helps.:)
A Pocket Guide to NSA Sabotage2 September 2000
September 1, 2000
A pocket guide to NSA sabotage
Doug Porter
The NSA engages in sabotage, much of it against American companies and products.
One campaign apparently occurred at about the time when PGP's most serious
vulnerability was added.
To understand the whole story requires some background.
In Bruce Schneier's newsletter Crypto-Gram he told us last year about Lew Giles,
said to be an NSA saboteur wrecking American privacy products in 1997. Schneier
says that according to several sources Giles went from company to company,
asking them to destroy the security of their own products, and arranging cover
stories to protect them. According to Crypto-Gram sometimes Giles worked
directly with engineers, with no managers around. The sabotage was always
supposed to look like a mistake.
At about the same time, PGP introduced "key recovery" with the hidden flaw
recently covered worldwide, including Schneier's own clear description in
Slashdot. Other serious vulnerabilities have been found in the PGP versions
released then. For example, just last May PGP was found to generate weak keys on
Linux and OpenBSD. The original report in BugTraq says the bug was introduced in
version 5.0, released in 1997.
Undoubtedly most security bugs are just bugs. But it's also very possible that
some are backdoors.
CNN and Network World detailed how the NSA openly strong arms companies,
"leaning on software, switch and router vendors" to make them "add a
government-approved back door into network gear." Companies working with the
NSA, however unwillingly, include Netscape, Sun, and Microsoft. Chris Tolles of
Sun says, "Everyone in Silicon Valley, including us, has to have specific staff
-- highly paid experts -- to deal with them." If everyone's dealing with them,
are any products secure?
Taher Elgamal, who wrote Netscape's so called "data-recovery plan" as demanded
by the spooks, said they didn't have a choice. Exports are about half the income
for these businesses. In practice companies need NSA's permission to export
security products, except for "export grade" junk. NSA only gives permission if
the security is crippled in some way.
Duncan Campbell reported in Interception Capabilities 2000 that NSA succeeded in
compromising browsers from both Microsoft and Netscape, as well as Lotus Notes.
The browsers' security was openly gutted by NSA's insistence on reducing key
sizes to whatever the NSA can easily crack at the time. In the case of Lotus
Notes the keys appeared to be longer, but just enough of each key was secretly
given to the NSA.
According to Network World the NSA "forced MasterCard International, Inc. to
dumb down the Secure Electronic Transaction (SET) credit-card encryption
standard." NSA insisted that most of every transaction not be encrypted at all.
When someone steals a lot of money using SET we'll know why.
Sabotaging friends and foes isn't new for the NSA. It's life long behavior. In
Crypto AG: The NSA's Trojan Whore you'll find the intriguing but very disturbing
story of how 50 years ago NSA rigged the crypto systems sold by Crypto AG so
that NSA could read the supposedly secret messages. Customers of Crypto AG
include embassies, military, banks, and rogue nations such as the Vatican.
We can stop this sabotage if we're willing to do the work. There are some
obvious steps. First, we can continue to insist on open source. We all know
similar vulnerabilities are in closed source products, but they are almost never
found. Would anyone have found these flaws in PGP without reading the code?
Second, we have to do security reviews of the code. With PGP most of us believed
-- or hoped -- someone else had carefully studied the code. Almost no one has.
Third, we need code review support services, extending what Sourceforge gives
us. Finally -- and this will be very tough for those of us who write code -- we
have to give good security reviewers the same kind of credit open source coders
get.
We can do the security reviews, or we can settle for NSA trojans. I'm going to
go read some Freenet code.
Merry Fitzmas?
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