Changing the Subject — Back

Jimmy Carter Speaks

The former president is on a book tour, and visited with Matt Lauer on NBC’s Today Show this morning.

“In the last five years, there has been a profound and radical change in the basic policies or moral values of our

country,” Carter said. The existence of secret CIA prisons, as exposed by The Post, “is just one indication of what has been

done in this administration to change policies that have persisted all the way through our history,” he said. …

Carter had quite

a list of grievances against Bush. The “insistence by our government that the CIA or others have the right to torture prisoners,” the

doctrine of pre-emptive war, “the abandonment of basic human rights, the derogation of American civil liberties and personal privacy, the

vast rewarding in a time of war of extremely rich Americans at the expense of working class people, the abandonment of protecting the

American environment — all of these things, are massive and radical departures from what our country has seen under every

president in the past 100 or more years. . . .

“It’s this administration vs. every administration that has

preceded it.”

Another Thunderbolt from Wilkerson

“Mr. WILKERSON: What happened was that the secretary of Defense, under the cover of the vice president’s office, began to

create an environment — and this started from the very beginning when David Addington, the vice president’s lawyer [Addington,

incidentally, was promoted this week to the position of vice presidential chief of staff, replacing his indicted former boss, Scooter

Libby], was a staunch advocate of allowing the president in his capacity as commander in chief to deviate from the Geneva Conventions.

Regardless of the president having put out this memo, they began to authorize procedures within the armed forces that led to, in my view,

what we’ve seen.

“INSKEEP: We have to get more detail about that because the military will say, the Pentagon will say they’ve

investigated this repeatedly and that all the investigations have found that the abuses were committed by a relatively small number of

people at relatively low levels. What hard evidence takes those abuses up the chain of command and lands them in the vice president’s

office, which is where you’re placing it?

“Mr. WILKERSON: I’m privy to the paperwork, both classified and unclassified, that the

secretary of State asked me to assemble on how this all got started, what the audit trail was, and when I began to assemble this

paperwork, which I no longer have access to, it was clear to me that there was a visible audit trail from the vice president’s

office through the secretary of Defense down to the commanders in the field that in carefully couched terms — I’ll give you

that — that to a soldier in the field meant two things: We’re not getting enough good intelligence and you need to get that evidence,

and, oh, by the way, here’s some ways you probably can get it. And even some of the ways that they detailed were not in accordance with

the spirit of the Geneva Conventions and the law of war.

“You just — if you’re a military man, you know that you just don’t do

these sorts of things because once you give just the slightest bit of leeway, there are those in the armed forces who will take advantage

of that. There are those in the leadership who will feel so pressured that they have to produce intelligence that it doesn’t matter

whether it’s actionable or not as long as they can get the volume in. They have to do what they have to do to get it, and so you’ve

just given in essence, though you may not know it, carte blanche for a lot of problems to occur.”
—–

Former Insider Lashes Out
By Dan

Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Thursday, October 20, 2005; 1:12 PM

It didn’t make the front page this morning, but

it seems to me that it’s a big deal when a former top administration official declares that a secret cabal led by the vice

president has hijacked U.S. foreign policy, inveigled the president, condoned torture and crippled the ability of the government to

respond to emergencies.

Lawrence Wilkerson, who was chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell until both men

resigned in January, unleashed his blistering attack on the Bush White House yesterday at a luncheon at a Washington think tank. …

“The comments, made at the New America Foundation, a Washington think-tank, were the harshest attack on the administration by a

former senior official since criticisms by Richard Clarke, former White House terrorism czar, and Paul O’Neill, former Treasury

secretary, early last year.”
—–

The White House Stonewall

It seems that Addington is who Libby turned to,

after his breakfast with New York Times reporter Judy Miller, when he needed more information about Plame. …

Addington was one

of the authors of the White House memo that critics said justified the use of torture on terrorism suspects. And he formally requested

that a website making fun of Lynne Cheney, the vice president’s wife, take down its material.

Many people have forgotten that the first Executive Order Duhbya signed was to greatly restrict

public access to executive documents, even long after one’s term is over. It was a clear declaration of how secretive and paranoid this

administration, chockful of Nixon compatriots, would be.

Who leaked this document? We’ve been demanding this info for 5 years —

gone to court for it. Now it is handed over just in time to make these well-paid execs look like tools and fools. Thanks, leaker! mjh

Document Says Oil Chiefs Met With Cheney Task Force By Dana Milbank and Justin

Blum, Washington Post Staff Writers

A White House document shows that executives from big oil companies met with Vice President

Cheney’s energy task force in 2001 — something long suspected by environmentalists but denied as recently as last week

by industry officials testifying before Congress.

The document, obtained this week by The Washington Post, shows that officials

from Exxon Mobil Corp., Conoco (before its merger with Phillips), Shell Oil Co. and BP America Inc. met in the White House complex with

the Cheney aides who were developing a national energy policy, parts of which became law and parts of which are still being debated.

In a joint hearing last week of the Senate Energy and Commerce committees, the chief executives of Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp.

and ConocoPhillips said their firms did not participate in the 2001 task force. The president of Shell Oil said his company did not

participate “to my knowledge,” and the chief of BP America Inc. said he did not know. …

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), who

posed the question about the task force, said he will ask the Justice Department today to investigate. “The White House went to

great lengths to keep these meetings secret, and now oil executives may be lying to Congress about their role in the Cheney task

force,” Lautenberg said. …

The executives were not under oath when they testified, so they are not vulnerable to

charges of perjury; committee Democrats had protested the decision by Commerce Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) not to swear in the

executives. But a person can be fined or imprisoned for up to five years for making “any materially false, fictitious or fraudulent

statement or representation” to Congress.

Republicans say whoever is in power pushes their own agenda. Sounds like the defense of a child or

schoolyard bully. Everywhere, Republicans are following Duhbya’s lead to change everything they can as quickly as they can, like

vandals. mjh

Row over Plan B unearths

suspicion of political manipulation
Congressional investigators are saying there is a suspicion that senior U.S. Food and Drug

Administration (FDA) officials may have decided to reject a politically sensitive request for over-the-counter sales of a “morning-after”

contraceptive months before agency scientists finished reviewing the scientific data.

In a report from the Government

Accountability Office (GAO) it was found that found the FDA’s May 2004 rejection of Barr Pharmaceuticals’ bid for the Plan B

contraceptive was “unusual,” because of the involvement of high-level managers.

The investigation requested by the congressional

Democrats say it provides evidence that opposition from political conservatives had swayed the FDA review.

The Republicans say liberals are “criminalizing

conservatives.” There is no doubt Abramoff is both a conservative and a criminal. Now his “victims” cry they were duped — what’s that

about “the party of personal responsibility”? Reminds me of Krusty the Klown crying that he didn’t want to lend his name to cheap

products but “they dumped a truck full of money in my driveway. What was I supposed to do?!” mjh

The Seattle Times: Nation & World: Lawmakers

pressured Interior while taking donations from Abramoff tribes By John Solomon, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — While

Congress investigated Jack Abramoff’s efforts to win influence inside government, its members held a secret: Nearly three dozen

lawmakers pressed to block a Louisiana Indian casino while collecting large donations from the lobbyist and his tribal clients.

Many, including leaders in both parties, intervened with letters to Interior Secretary Gale Norton within days of receiving money

from tribes represented by Abramoff or using the lobbyist’s restaurant for fundraising, an Associated Press review of campaign reports,

IRS records and congressional correspondence found.

Lawmakers said their intervention had nothing to do with Abramoff and that

the timing of donations was a coincidence. They said they wrote letters because they opposed the expansion of tribal gaming,

even though they continued to accept donations from casino-running tribes.

Many of the lawmakers involved lived far from

Louisiana and had no constituent interest in the casino dispute.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., held a fundraiser

at Abramoff’s Signatures restaurant in Washington on June 3, 2003, that collected at least $21,500 for Hastert’s Keep Our Majority

political action committee from the lobbyist’s firm and tribal clients.

Seven days later, Hastert wrote Norton urging her to

reject the Jena tribe of Choctaw Indians’ request for a new casino. Hastert’s three top House deputies also signed the letter. …

In the midst of the congressional letter-writing campaign, the Bush administration rejected the Jena’s casino on technical

grounds. …

The Coushattas wrote two checks to Rep. Tom DeLay’s groups in 2001 and 2002, shortly before the GOP leader

wrote Norton. But the tribe was asked by Abramoff to take back the checks and route the money to other GOP groups. In

all, DeLay received at least $57,000 in Abramoff and tribal donations between 2001 and 2004. [mjh: this is known as

“money laundering”]
—–

Big

Donations From Abramoff’s Tribal Clients Probed – Los Angeles Times By Mary Curtius, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — The

head of a Republican environmental organization clashed repeatedly today with senators who accused her of trying to use her friendship

with an Interior Department official to further the business interests of super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s tribal clients.

Italia

Federici, president of the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, told an incredulous Senate Indian Affairs

Committee that she believed Abramoff’s tribal clients donated $500,000 over a three-year period to her organization

because they were generous, not because they hoped she would help them thwart the efforts of competing tribes to open

casinos. …

Echoing other Abramoff associates who have testified before the committee in hearings that began more than a year

ago, Federici insisted that she had been duped by the lobbyist.

“I had no reason in 2002 to believe that Mr. Abramoff was anything

other than a truthful, friendly, charismatic, well-liked and well-respected Republican advocate in Washington,” Federici

said.

When she found out that Abramoff had funded the anti-casino campaign, Federici said, “I felt tremendously manipulated.”

—–

Committee on Indian Affairs

Exhibits

released to the public as part of the Oversight Hearing on Lobbying Practices.

Yet another in a series of abusers of power and access. They’re starting to fall from the trees

like rotten fruit. mjh

A Detour in The Corridor Of Power By Thomas B. Edsall, Washington Post Staff

Writer

Indictment Snaps Rapid Rise of Republican Star

Before he was indicted on five felony counts of lying to

investigators, David H. Safavian was positioned to break out of the pack of Republican operatives working in Washington.

Just 38, he was administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy at the president’s Office of Management and Budget, with the

authority to make the rules governing $300 billion in annual expenditures, including those in response to Hurricane Katrina.

But

that was before federal agents appeared at his home on Sept. 19 and arrested Safavian in connection with the investigation of

Jack Abramoff, charging that Safavian lied about his dealings with the onetime powerhouse lobbyist and misled investigators from

the General Services Administration and the Senate.

Knowing the indictment was imminent, Safavian had resigned his post three days

earlier….

Safavian set out a decade ago to win the backing of influential conservative Republicans such as Abramoff and anti-tax

crusader Grover Norquist. In the intense competition for power in Washington, Safavian climbed the political ladder in the relatively

short span of 10 years. …

On Sept 28, 2004, The Washington Post disclosed that in August 2002, Safavian, who was then at the

GSA, had gone on a golfing trip to Scotland arranged by Abramoff. House Administration Committee Chairman Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio) and

lobbyist and former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed were also on the trip.

Safavian told GSA officials when he took the trip

that he had no business dealings with Abramoff. The federal affidavit filed when Safavian was arrested says Abramoff had asked Safavian

about acquiring property controlled by the GSA, butSafavian’s lawyer contends the inquiries did not constitute “doing business,” and

said Safavian paid his share of the $120,000-plus trip by giving Abramoff a check for $3,100.

Moderates Unhappy but Sticking With GOP for Now By Claudia Deane and Chris

Cillizza

One potential wedge is the role of conservative religious groups in determining the party’s agenda. In the most recent

Post-ABC News poll, 44 percent of GOP moderates said that conservative religious groups have “too much influence” in the Bush

administration, compared with 17 percent who thought those groups didn’t hold enough sway [mjh: how can one be a

moderate and think that?]. About a third saw religious conservatives as appropriately influential. …

The poll offered a

couple of consolations for the Republican leadership: First, conservatives in their party still outnumber moderates (55 to 39

percent in the most recent survey). Second, few moderates currently see the Democrats as an appealing alternative. Asked which

party they would support if the midterm elections were being held now, 13 percent of Republican moderates chose the Democrats, and 80

percent stuck with the GOP.

The

Political Center Makes a Comeback By David S. Broder

In Congress and in constituencies across the country, last week

demonstrated a powerful and welcome trend: After a long eclipse, the people in the political center, the moderates, have regained

their voice and are reasserting themselves. [mjh: yeah, all 39% of them] …

Now that public mood — which was amply

demonstrated in last Tuesday’s off-year voting — has stiffened spines in the Capitol. On Thursday at least 22 House Republican

moderates balked at cutting programs for low-income people and at opening portions of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil

drilling. They forced the leadership of their party to pull a budget bill endorsed by the president and containing those provisions.

It was the second successful rebellion by the long-scorned Main Street Coalition [mjh: aka RINOs to their disdainful cohort], which also nudged the Bush administration to reverse itself

on encouraging pay at less than prevailing local wages for Hurricane Katrina reconstruction.