By The Associated Press The Associated Press Sunday, April 22, 2007; 1:41 PM
-- A rundown of Bush appointees who left under a cloud or face conflict-of-interest allegations
_Scooter Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice in a grand jury investigation into the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame. His trial also implicated top political adviser Karl Rove and Cheney in a campaign to discredit her husband, Iraq war critic and retired ambassador Joe Wilson. Libby, who plans an appeal, is awaiting a June 5 sentencing.
_ Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is fighting to hold onto his job in the face of congressional investigations into his role in the firing of eight U.S. attorneys. Two top aides have resigned in the investigation into whether the firings were politically motivated. Emails and other evidence released by the Justice Deparment suggest that Rove played a part in the process. Other e-mails, sent on Republican party accounts, either have disappeared or were erased.
_ Paul Wolfowitz, president of the World Bank and a former deputy defense secretary, acknowledged he helped arrange a large pay raise for his female companion when she was transferred to the State Department but remained on the bank payroll. The incident intensified calls at the bank for his resignation.
_ J. Steven Griles, an oil and gas lobbyist who became deputy Interior Secretary J., last month became the highest-ranking Bush administration official convicted in the Jack Abramoff influence-peddling scandal, pleading guilty to obstructing justice by lying to a Senate committee about his relationship with the convicted lobbyist. Abramoff repeatedly sought Griles' intervention at Interior on behalf of Indian tribal clients.
_ Former White House aide, David H. Safavian, was convicted last year of lying to government investigators about his ties to Abramoff and faces a 180-month prison sentence.
_ Roger Stillwell, a former Interior Department official, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge for not reporting tickets he received from Abramoff.
_ Sue Ellen Wooldridge, the top Justice Department prosecutor in the environmental division until January, bought a $980,000 beach house in South Carolina with ConocoPhillips lobbyist Donald R. Duncan and oil and gas lobbyist Griles. Soon thereafter, she signed an agreement giving the oil company more time to clean up air pollution at some of its refineries. Congressional Democrats have denounced the arrangement.
_ Matteo Fontana, a Department of Education official who oversaw the student loan industry, was put on leave last week after disclosure that he owned at least $100,000 worth of stock in a student loan company.
_ Claude Allen, who had been Bush's domestic policy adviser, pleaded guilty to theft in making phony returns at discount department stores while working at the White house. He was sentenced to two years of supervised probation and fined $500.
_ Philip Cooney, a former American Petroleum Institute lobbyist who became chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, acknowledged in congressional testimony earlier this year that he changed three government reports to eliminate or downplay links between greenhouse gases and global warming. He left in 2005 to work for Exxon Mobil Corp.
_ Darleen Druyun, a former Air Force procurement officer, served nine months in prison in 2005 for violating federal conflict-of-interest rules in a deal to lease Boeing refueling tankers for $23 billion, despite Pentagon studies showing the tankers were unnecessary. After making the deal, she quit the government and joined Boeing.
_Eric Keroack, Bush's choice to oversee the federal family planning program, resigned from the post suddenly last month after the Massachusetts Medicaid office launched an investigation into his private practice. He had been medical director of an organization that opposes premarital sex and contraception.
_ Lurita Doan, head of the General Services Administration, attended a luncheon at the agency earlier this year with other top GSA political appointees at which Scott Jennings, a top Rove aide, gave a PowerPoint demonstration on how to help Republican candidates in 2008. A congressional committee is investigating whether the remarks violated a federal law that restricts executive-branch employees from using their positions for political purposes.
_ Robert W. Cobb, NASA's inspector general is under investigation on charges of ignoring safety violations in the space program. An internal administration review said he routinely tipped off department officials to internal investigations and quashed a report related to the Columbia shuttle explosion to avoid embarrassing the agency. He remains on the job. Only Bush can fire him.
_ Julie MacDonald, who oversees the Fish and Wildlife Service but has no academic background in biology, overrode recommendations of agency scientists about how to protect endangered species and improperly leaked internal information to private groups, the Interior Department inspector general said.
Oh the stunning hyporcrisy of this guy! What's that Orin likes to say? Something to the effect of "Hyprocrite is a compliment vice pays to virtue"? So, tell me Orin, is this your idea of a virtuous man? Do you want to admit he's a hyporcrite, or are you trying to say with your absurd little line that there's no such thing as a hypocrite?
Things like this almost make me thing there is a god and she obviously hates republicans.
April 28, 2007 10:53 PM
Anonymous said...
Andrea- not anon- Like Ted Haggard- he hired prostitutes for massages, yeah ,right. Now according to the article, these young ladies charge $275 for this service- I don't know the Central American co. price -but the $275 price was for college educated women. Woody Allen(not a person for whom I have respect anymore) wrote a story about an outcall service where college coeds came to your room to discuss literature- of course, in his story- it was true.
Why is it when these guys want a massage- they don't call a licensed massage therapist? I know they hold the rest of us in disdain by what they have been doing publicly but really - if they have been getting "massaged" - don't they think we know just what part of them is getting the massage? I guess they just wanted to get done to them what they had been doing, figuratively, to us.
Andrea
April 29, 2007 4:31 PM
Anonymous said...
As the lead spokesman for President Bush's ABC campaign (Abstinence, Be Faithful, Condoms), lets hope he at least followed the latter.
April 29, 2007 9:28 PM
Anonymous said...
I don't think you really need to wear a condom for a massage, do you?
April 29, 2007 9:38 PM
Anonymous said...
That depends on which body parts are doing the massaging.
Deputy Secretary of State Randall L. Tobias already flunked the A and B parts so let's hope he didn't flunk the C part too, especially since A & B are all he personally thinks are necessary to fight AIDS. Since he failed at A & B, he needed C to keep himself and his "masseuses" -- not to mention his wife back home -- safe.
It is ALWAYS best to use a condom to prevent body fluid contact if you aren't planning to make babies and/or if you are not sure of the HIV status of your mate.
I got bored, so I decided to do some wandering, and I found this,
Randi writes,
Oh the stunning hyporcrisy of this guy! What's that Orin likes to say? Something to the effect of "Hyprocrite is a compliment vice pays to virtue"?
Yes, a favorite quote of mine, minted by french aristocrat...
So, tell me Orin, is this your idea of a virtuous man?
In a single word: no.
Do you want to admit he's a hyporcrite, or are you trying to say with your absurd little line that there's no such thing as a hypocrite?
Is he a hypocrite? Hummmm, I don't know because I have never read anything written by this person that would set himself up as some sort or moral example to be followed.
What am I trying to say with my "absurd little line" (well, it is not really mine as I have repeatedly made clear...just so I am not accused of stealing someone else's words) is that we are all an amalgam of good and bad habits, i.e. virtues and vices. While I strive to develop good habits, hence virtues, I understand I must be on guard against bad habits, vices.
Obviously this person was not on guard against the bad habit of receiving a massage from someone who doubles as a prostitute (I've been once to get a massage; I was required to sign a form stating that there would be no sex and that if I attempted to make it anything other than a massage that the massage would end *immediately* and that I would not receive any refund - it was a gift from a neighbor for having done some arduous work when this neighbor's basement flooded - it was ok; I prefer a hot, soaking bath with lavender and lemongrass oils).
Things like this almost make me think there is a god and she obviously hates republicans.
The only thing God cares about is goodness, of this I know of with a certainty...He/She/It cares not a whit for Republican or Democrat. Though I would be careful Randi as that gloating could easily turn into wrath, one of the Deadly Seven (Sins). At the least, gloating could hardly be considered any kind of virtue.
May 04, 2007 7:08 AM
You've been seeing the news about Jeane Palfrey, the "DC Madam," right? She's the one who was going to sell her little black book to pay for legal expenses. For thirteen years she has run a "high-end adult fantasy firm" in the city, running it like a legitimate business, which she considered it to be. She paid taxes, kept good books, maintained all the paperwork any other business would have.
There are said to be tens of thousands of names in that little black book. She has forty-six pounds of "detailed and itemized phone records." Some people in town are ... uncomfortable about this.
This ABC News story quotes her as saying: "I'm sure as heck not going to be going to federal prison for one day, let alone, four to eight years, because I'm shy about bringing in the deputy secretary of whatever," Palfrey told ABC News. Senior Official Linked to Escort Service Resigns And ... there goes the Deputy Secretary of State, Randall L. Tobias. Reported directly to Condoleezza.
Deputy Secretary of State Randall L. Tobias submitted his resignation Friday, one day after confirming to ABC News that he had been a customer of a Washington, D.C. escort service whose owner has been charged by federal prosecutors with running a prostitution operation.
Tobias, 65, director of U.S. Foreign Assistance and administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), had previously served as the ambassador for the President's Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief.
This madam depicts the fight as David versus Goliath, the IRS against a little local businessperson. Seems they came in one day last October and seized all her assets, all her bank accounts and everything, even though she had retired from the business in August.
This story says: As the Bush administration's so-called "AIDS czar," Tobias was criticized for emphasizing faithfulness and abstinence over condom use to prevent the spread of AIDS. You see what this is, right?
This is one of those guys who said condoms don't work. He was the Bush administration's guy in charge of AIDS policy.
When he was appointed Global AIDS Coordinator in 2003, Doug Ireland wrote in LA Weekly: "To administer the $15-billion plan, Bush cynically named someone who has no experience with AIDS and none with diseases in developing countries: Randall L. Tobias, the former chairman of the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly & Co. Tobias was chosen to ensure that U.S. moneys are given to those who purchase AIDS-fighting meds at top dollar from Big Pharma, instead of giving them to countries so they can themselves buy generic AIDS drugs at the lowest possible prices — meaning the money won’t go nearly as far as it could." Under different circumstances, I would say this abstinence-promoting family-values guy's sudden resignation was "ironic." This administration, though, seems to have a way of finding the very worst person for every job -- can all this have happened by accident? The logical next step for this guy is the Medal of Freedom. On Thursday, Tobias told ABC News he had several times called the "Pamela Martin and Associates" escort service "to have gals come over to the condo to give me a massage." Tobias, who is married, said there had been "no sex," and that recently he had been using another service "with Central Americans" to provide massages. How stupid do these people think we are?
Here you got your big-time pro-abstinence guy going out with call girls, and saying he never ... oh, never mind.
"Deputy Secretary of State to Spend More Time With His Family"
7 Comments -
This is merely the tip of the iceberg.
Bush Administration Under a Cloud
By The Associated Press
The Associated Press
Sunday, April 22, 2007; 1:41 PM
-- A rundown of Bush appointees who left under a cloud or face conflict-of-interest allegations
_Scooter Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice in a grand jury investigation into the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame. His trial also implicated top political adviser Karl Rove and Cheney in a campaign to discredit her husband, Iraq war critic and retired ambassador Joe Wilson. Libby, who plans an appeal, is awaiting a June 5 sentencing.
_ Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is fighting to hold onto his job in the face of congressional investigations into his role in the firing of eight U.S. attorneys. Two top aides have resigned in the investigation into whether the firings were politically motivated. Emails and other evidence released by the Justice Deparment suggest that Rove played a part in the process. Other e-mails, sent on Republican party accounts, either have disappeared or were erased.
_ Paul Wolfowitz, president of the World Bank and a former deputy defense secretary, acknowledged he helped arrange a large pay raise for his female companion when she was transferred to the State Department but remained on the bank payroll. The incident intensified calls at the bank for his resignation.
_ J. Steven Griles, an oil and gas lobbyist who became deputy Interior Secretary J., last month became the highest-ranking Bush administration official convicted in the Jack Abramoff influence-peddling scandal, pleading guilty to obstructing justice by lying to a Senate committee about his relationship with the convicted lobbyist. Abramoff repeatedly sought Griles' intervention at Interior on behalf of Indian tribal clients.
_ Former White House aide, David H. Safavian, was convicted last year of lying to government investigators about his ties to Abramoff and faces a 180-month prison sentence.
_ Roger Stillwell, a former Interior Department official, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge for not reporting tickets he received from Abramoff.
_ Sue Ellen Wooldridge, the top Justice Department prosecutor in the environmental division until January, bought a $980,000 beach house in South Carolina with ConocoPhillips lobbyist Donald R. Duncan and oil and gas lobbyist Griles. Soon thereafter, she signed an agreement giving the oil company more time to clean up air pollution at some of its refineries. Congressional Democrats have denounced the arrangement.
_ Matteo Fontana, a Department of Education official who oversaw the student loan industry, was put on leave last week after disclosure that he owned at least $100,000 worth of stock in a student loan company.
_ Claude Allen, who had been Bush's domestic policy adviser, pleaded guilty to theft in making phony returns at discount department stores while working at the White house. He was sentenced to two years of supervised probation and fined $500.
_ Philip Cooney, a former American Petroleum Institute lobbyist who became chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, acknowledged in congressional testimony earlier this year that he changed three government reports to eliminate or downplay links between greenhouse gases and global warming. He left in 2005 to work for Exxon Mobil Corp.
_ Darleen Druyun, a former Air Force procurement officer, served nine months in prison in 2005 for violating federal conflict-of-interest rules in a deal to lease Boeing refueling tankers for $23 billion, despite Pentagon studies showing the tankers were unnecessary. After making the deal, she quit the government and joined Boeing.
_Eric Keroack, Bush's choice to oversee the federal family planning program, resigned from the post suddenly last month after the Massachusetts Medicaid office launched an investigation into his private practice. He had been medical director of an organization that opposes premarital sex and contraception.
_ Lurita Doan, head of the General Services Administration, attended a luncheon at the agency earlier this year with other top GSA political appointees at which Scott Jennings, a top Rove aide, gave a PowerPoint demonstration on how to help Republican candidates in 2008. A congressional committee is investigating whether the remarks violated a federal law that restricts executive-branch employees from using their positions for political purposes.
_ Robert W. Cobb, NASA's inspector general is under investigation on charges of ignoring safety violations in the space program. An internal administration review said he routinely tipped off department officials to internal investigations and quashed a report related to the Columbia shuttle explosion to avoid embarrassing the agency. He remains on the job. Only Bush can fire him.
_ Julie MacDonald, who oversees the Fish and Wildlife Service but has no academic background in biology, overrode recommendations of agency scientists about how to protect endangered species and improperly leaked internal information to private groups, the Interior Department inspector general said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/22/AR2007042200519.html
April 28, 2007 9:10 AM
Oh the stunning hyporcrisy of this guy! What's that Orin likes to say? Something to the effect of "Hyprocrite is a compliment vice pays to virtue"? So, tell me Orin, is this your idea of a virtuous man? Do you want to admit he's a hyporcrite, or are you trying to say with your absurd little line that there's no such thing as a hypocrite?
Things like this almost make me thing there is a god and she obviously hates republicans.
April 28, 2007 10:53 PM
Andrea- not anon-
Like Ted Haggard- he hired prostitutes for massages, yeah ,right. Now according to the article, these young ladies charge $275 for this service- I don't know the Central American co. price -but the $275 price was for college educated women. Woody Allen(not a person for whom I have respect anymore) wrote a story about an outcall service where college coeds came to your room to discuss literature- of course, in his story- it was true.
Why is it when these guys want a massage- they don't call a licensed massage therapist? I know they hold the rest of us in disdain by what they have been doing publicly but really - if they have been getting "massaged" - don't they think we know just what part of them is getting the massage? I guess they just wanted to get done to them what they had been doing, figuratively, to us.
Andrea
April 29, 2007 4:31 PM
As the lead spokesman for President Bush's ABC campaign (Abstinence, Be Faithful, Condoms), lets hope he at least followed the latter.
April 29, 2007 9:28 PM
I don't think you really need to wear a condom for a massage, do you?
April 29, 2007 9:38 PM
That depends on which body parts are doing the massaging.
Deputy Secretary of State Randall L. Tobias already flunked the A and B parts so let's hope he didn't flunk the C part too, especially since A & B are all he personally thinks are necessary to fight AIDS. Since he failed at A & B, he needed C to keep himself and his "masseuses" -- not to mention his wife back home -- safe.
It is ALWAYS best to use a condom to prevent body fluid contact if you aren't planning to make babies and/or if you are not sure of the HIV status of your mate.
April 30, 2007 7:25 AM
I got bored, so I decided to do some wandering, and I found this,
Randi writes,
Oh the stunning hyporcrisy of this guy! What's that Orin likes to say? Something to the effect of "Hyprocrite is a compliment vice pays to virtue"?
Yes, a favorite quote of mine, minted by french aristocrat...
So, tell me Orin, is this your idea of a virtuous man?
In a single word: no.
Do you want to admit he's a hyporcrite, or are you trying to say with your absurd little line that there's no such thing as a hypocrite?
Is he a hypocrite? Hummmm, I don't know because I have never read anything written by this person that would set himself up as some sort or moral example to be followed.
What am I trying to say with my "absurd little line" (well, it is not really mine as I have repeatedly made clear...just so I am not accused of stealing someone else's words) is that we are all an amalgam of good and bad habits, i.e. virtues and vices. While I strive to develop good habits, hence virtues, I understand I must be on guard against bad habits, vices.
Obviously this person was not on guard against the bad habit of receiving a massage from someone who doubles as a prostitute (I've been once to get a massage; I was required to sign a form stating that there would be no sex and that if I attempted to make it anything other than a massage that the massage would end *immediately* and that I would not receive any refund - it was a gift from a neighbor for having done some arduous work when this neighbor's basement flooded - it was ok; I prefer a hot, soaking bath with lavender and lemongrass oils).
Things like this almost make me think there is a god and she obviously hates republicans.
The only thing God cares about is goodness, of this I know of with a certainty...He/She/It cares not a whit for Republican or Democrat. Though I would be careful Randi as that gloating could easily turn into wrath, one of the Deadly Seven (Sins). At the least, gloating could hardly be considered any kind of virtue.
May 04, 2007 7:08 AM