Muskasey- Just Another Bushie

We’ve been watching Mukasey for a while, we were on the fence with his appointment: was he just another republican hack or was he the real thing as some have claimed? It seems like the jury is in, and Mukasey is just more of the same old thing. First he can’t decide if waterboarding is torture, and apparently has more positions on it than Mitt Romney on virtually every issue which is saying a lot. Then it was the CIA tape case which apparently doesn’t need a real probe. Now we find on further investigation he was about to become one of these highly paid, no bid corporate monitors we’ve been following since Ashcroft showed up as on in the Washington Post.

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Lawlessness is the NeoCon Way

Apparently, not only is the executive branch so powerful and so omniscient it doesn’t exist, those who used to be known as the members of it – President Bush and Dick Cheney have decided that laws are for other people. Two deals the administration is working on would effectively protect corporate America from any sort of legal redress when they spy on you, or wantonly murder civilians in Iraq, or anywhere else they are providing “security”.

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GAO to Investigate Corporate Monitorships

The Washington Post is reporting that Representatives John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) have requested the Government Accounting Office investigate the Department of Justice’s practice of ordering corporate monitorships. Monitors are individuals assigned to scrutinize companies that have been found guilty of malfeasance. Rather than indicting these companies in a way that would do damage to the overall company, and possibly cost workers their jobs, a monitor comes in and makes changes on the company dime.

As you may remember, last Sunday and the week before, Past and Prologue covered the story of former Attorney General John Ashcroft’s $28 million to $52 million no-bid contract to oversee a medical company named Zimmer who had been found guilty of giving kickbacks to doctors who proscribed this companies products. “The manner in which these contracts have been awarded and the lack of oversight in their implementation raises questions about the role of political or personal favoritism,” Leahy and Conyers wrote.

More on this as the story progresses…

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Out-of-work ex-politicos seek jobs, monitorships

Last week our dear moderator touched upon a story involving former U.S. attorney general John Ashcroft and a no-bid contract valued at just over $25 million to “monitor” a medical supplier who got caught giving kickbacks to doctors who used and proscribed their products. Today, Carrie Johnson of the Washington Post has an A1 talking about this practice of “allowing scandal-plagued companies to avoid criminal charges,” by agreeing to creating consulting positions dubbed “monitorships.” Read on to see how politicos are finding new and interesting ways to integrate themselves and friends into huge piles of multi-million dollar contracts.

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Is this America?

Flying in the face of historical value, lack of destruction and showing support for blatant racism demolition is beginning on public housing units throughout New Orleans. Local business interests, using hurricane Katrina as a transparent cover have seized the opportunity to remove the last remnants of any type of affordable housing in New Orleans to force the creation of a “mixed use” (gentrified) area. Protests have been on going since this announcement and they came to a head today:

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Drugs, Spying and a man named Nacchio

The NSA-Telcom drama continued over the weekend when the New York Times ran a story about the government’s ever-growing reliance on telecommunications companies to help gather and identify would be terrorists. Apparently, on the War on Drugs front, the NSA has been using telecom companies to spy on Americans who called Latin America and other drug-producing regions with regularity since the 1990s. “The D.E.A. declined to comment on the call-tracing program, except to say that it “exercises its legal authority” to issue administrative subpoenas. The N.S.A. also declined to comment on it,” according to the article.

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When Corporate Reign Goes Too Far

As Yahoo! Chief Executive Jerry Yang went before congress to apologize for Yahoo! China’s role in the jailing of a Chinese dissident, the ironic theater of this whole event aside, we thought of other recent news items. ATT & Verizon helping in the domestic wiretapping of Americans without being asked,the sub-prime crisis, the private security debacle, etc.

By virtue of their size, resources, and ability, corporations have always been and likely will always be on the chopping block for their sins. They make easy targets, they tend to be in the wrong, and their primary responsibility is to their shareholders and not say, their customers, the general public or the common good. Given the amount of these types of appearances recently, its hard to feel sympathy for them.

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