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Taylor Marsh has been writing on line since 1996, with the archives provided here a representation of that work.

Tag Archives | investigations

Ben Bradlee Questions Deep Throat and Red Flag in Flower Pot

By on 04 May 2012

Did that potted [plant] incident ever happen? … and meeting in some garage. One meeting in the garage? Fifty meetings in the garage? I don’t know how many meetings in the garage … There’s a residual fear in my soul that that isn’t quite straight. – from “Yours in Truth: A Personal Portrait of Ben Bradlee,” by Jim Himmelman

Via New York magazine - Photo: Treatments by Gluekit

BOB WOODWARD PLEADED to Himmelman, “Don’t give fodder to the fuckers.” He’s talking about people like me.

But it’s not “fodder.” It’s historical context from none other than Ben Bradlee. The story Woodward Carl Bernstein broke, along with Barry Sussman and Howard Simons, changed history by breaking the Nixon administration wide open. The Washington Post won a Pulitzer for their coverage and the story ended up as one of the most incredible political thrillers in motion picture history.

This new Watergate mystery revolves around Jim Himmelman, a former research assistant to Bob Woodward. In uncovering long buried Ben Bradlee memos to which he was given access for a new book he’s writing, excerpted from New York magazine last Sunday, it’s revealed that Ben Bradlee was a skeptic about certain details in “All the President’s Men.”

Joel Achenbach is covering this bombshell for the Post. Max Holland of the Daily Beast has been critical of the Deep Throat legacy for some time and also did a write up this week, as did Politico, as well as Slate’s Jack Shafer.

As an aside, Ben Bradlee makes an appearance in my book The Hillary Effect, as does his wife Sally Quinn and for good reason. Bradlee admitted that Ken Starr, as a judge back in the ’80s, gave the Washington Post a judgment on a libel suit that saved the paper millions of dollars and endeared Starr to him forever. This little nugget was reported by Salon.com in an article titled “The Not So Mighty Quinn,” which is no longer available online, though it’s partially cached on Google. It’s one reason it was critical to get the history written down.

During Watergate, I watched every televised portion of the hearings and hung on every word, which is why this story got my attention. I became enamored with Republican Howard Baker because of his performance during the hearings, as did many, thinking Sam Ervin, chair of the Senate Watergate Committee, a god for the way he handled his difficult job, which you’d never see from anyone today. It was back in the days where my political opinion was moored to my big brother’s tutelage.

Himmelman’s Bradlee find freaked Woodward out, but Bradlee was nonplussed. He also refused to do what Woodward asked, revealing a lot about both men.

Bob went into his pitch, which he proceeded to repeat over the course of the meeting. He would read the “residual fear” line out loud, and then say he couldn’t figure out how Ben could still have had doubts about his reporting so many years after Nixon resigned. This was the unresolvable crux of the problem, and one they circled for the duration of the meeting: How could Ben have doubted the flowerpots and the garage meetings, when the rest of the reporting had turned out to be true? Bob thought this was inconsistent and hurtful. Ben didn’t. Bob tried everything he could to get Ben to disavow what he had said, or at least tell me I couldn’t use it. Ben wouldn’t do either of those things. “Bob, you’ve made your point,” Ben said after Bob had made his pitch four or five times. “Quit while you’re ahead.”

[...] He closed by making a direct, personal appeal to Ben. “You’re this legend,” he said. “You’re the editor.” Ben’s doubts were going to mean something to people. Ben did his aw-shucks routine, but he had clearly made the calculation that Nixon’s resignation, and the reporting that had contributed to it, weren’t contingent on whether Deep Throat had watched Bob’s balcony for flowerpot updates. That was on Bob and Carl, not on Ben or on the Post.

[...] At the end of the meeting, when Bob asked for his final opinion, Ben said, “I’m okay with it, and I think I’m going to come out of it fine. So you two work it out.”

Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward gave Joel Achenbach their response to Himmelman, which is offered below in its entirety, because to do otherwise wouldn’t be right.

“If Jeff Himmelman thinks his discovery of a December 4, 1972 memo on Watergate is a significant revelation, he is wrong. The memo he has is authentic. To the best of our recollection, someone contacted Carl and said there was a person, a neighbor, who had important information on Watergate. Carl went and interviewed the woman as described in the Dec. 4, 1972 memo. As the memo plainly shows, Carl did not know she was a member of the Watergate grand jury when he arrived at her home.

“She gave Carl her phone number — and he later noted ‘this checked w. grand jury list number’ that we had. If he knew initially that he was interviewing a member of the grand jury, that would have been stated at the top of the memo, as was our style in all Watergate memos of interviews. He also quotes her in the memo as volunteering, ‘of course I was on the grand jury’ because that was news to him.

“Though the woman threw out lots of names of those she suspected of furthering the criminal conspiracy (she had some right and some wrong), she provided no specific information of suspect or illegal actions. What she said led to no story. As Carl wrote in the memo, ‘she advises us to read our articles from Sept. 15 to Oct. 30. ‘You will have many clues — there is more truth there than you must have realized.’ We wrote those stories and did realize they were true. Those stories essentially outlined the Watergate conspiracy and alleged that crimes had been committed by Haldeman, Mitchell, Stans, Kalmbach, Magruder, Porter, Chapin and Segretti.

“We referred to this woman’s interview in less than two pages (p. 211-213) in our book about covering Watergate, All the President’s Men. In that book we did not, of course, reveal that she was a member of the grand jury — in order to protect her as a source.

“When asked on April 26 2012 by Himmelman, neither of us — until after reading the original memo after 39 years — remembered she had been a member of the Watergate grand jury. The interview with her had been of little consequence because she was not telling us much more than we already believed — and published. And the lack of specifics in her account meant we had little to follow up on. Frankly we were not sure what to make of her comments at the time, and in our book Carl noted that she ‘sounded like some kind of mystic.’ But it was one of those interviews that gave us and our editors comfort that we were on the right track as later demonstrated by the subsequent investigations and history. The memo does, however, show that a member of the grand jury thought the prosecutors, who supervised and ran the grand jury, had missed the real story and the high-level conspiracy.

“You ought to publish the whole memo so your readers can see it and understand its clear context.

— Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward”

From the New York Times, part of what Woodward had to say:

In an interview Monday, a day after New York magazine published an excerpt from the book, Mr. Woodward described Mr. Bradlee’s comments as outdated, long before the identity of Deep Throat, Mr. Woodward’s anonymous source, was revealed.

“I can understand in 1990, when Ben doesn’t know all the details, he’s kind of musing and saying, ‘Gee, I’m not sure this is all straight because it seems so incredible,’” he said. “But all of Watergate was incredible.”

He added, “This is a classic case of manufactured controversy, as best I can tell.”

Mr. Himmelman, through his publisher, declined to be interviewed.

It’s not clear at all it’s a “manufactured controversy.” It would change the way many watch “All the President’s Men,” as well as study the subject. If Deep Throat and the flag in the flower pot were manufactured in part, it changes the dramatics, though not the outcome.

The Washington Post still brought down Richard M. Nixon.

It remains very unfortunate Gerald Ford pardoned him.

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Obama’s Composite Girlfriend Creates Rip van Winkle Awakening

By on 03 May 2012

The success of “Dreams” has given Obama nearly complete control of his own life narrative, an appealing tale that has been the foundation of his political success. But Maraniss’s biography threatens that narrative by questioning it: Was Obama’s journey entirely spiritual and intellectual? Or was it also grounded in the lower realms of ambition and calculation? – The dangerous new Obama book, by Glenn Thrush and Dylan Byers

BACK IN 2007, into very early 2008, when the national press was agog about Barack Obama, I wrote about him in a manner that was honest and highly doubting that the myth matched what I’d been told by Chicagoans, as well as what I’d dug up and read about the man who was just another ruthless politician. But politics is a dirty game and there isn’t one person who reaches Obama’s heights that doesn’t get into the mud, which was certainly the case in the Democratic primaries of 2007, which I recount in my book The Hillary Effect.

The Obama camp went nuclear on Jodi Kantor’s The Obamas, which I’ve defended, as they also did on Confidence Men by Ron Suskind, also a trove of revealing facts. So you can bet they’ve got a corner of their reelection war room ready for David Marinass’s new book Barack Obama: The Story, to be published in June by Simon & Schuster.

However, let’s begin with what Barack Obama wrote in Dreams from My Father, before the reader gets to the first page:

“For the sake of compression, some of the characters that appear are composites of people, I’ve known, and some events appear out of precise chronology. With the exception of my family and a handful of public figures, the names of most characters have been changed for the sake of privacy.” [Business Insider]

No one can get into Mr. Obama’s mind way back when he was writing his memoir, but having written about a boyfriend in my current book I’ll admit I can’t relate to the composite choice. There are many ways to protect people, with a composite obviously coming with motive on crafting a story that lives beyond facts and truth. It’s not in any way necessarily nefarious, dishonest or manipulative. However, considering Barack Obama’s healthy ambition it’s clear there was intent to create a narrative that suited the main character’s purpose. Again, nothing wrong with that either, but the tale does lie beyond fact. That he admits this up front is important. Why he decided to take that road, however, is too.

It is excerpted in Vanity Fair:

In Dreams from My Father, Obama chose to emphasize a racial chasm that unavoidably separated him from the woman he described as his New York girlfriend.

One night I took her to see a new play by a black playwright. It was a very angry play, but very funny. Typical black American humor. The audience was mostly black, and everybody was laughing and clapping and hollering like they were in church. After the play was over, my friend started talking about why black people were so angry all the time. I said it was a matter of remembering—nobody asks why Jews remember the Holocaust, I think I said—and she said that’s different, and I said it wasn’t, and she said that anger was just a dead end. We had a big fight, right in front of the theater. When we got back to the car she started crying. She couldn’t be black, she said. She would if she could, but she couldn’t. She could only be herself, and wasn’t that enough.

None of this happened with Genevieve. She remembered going to the theater only once with Barack, and it was not to see a work by a black playwright. When asked about this decades later, during a White House interview, Obama acknowledged that the scene did not happen with Genevieve. “It is an incident that happened,” he said. But not with her. He would not be more specific, but the likelihood is that it happened later, when he lived in Chicago. “That was not her,” he said. “That was an example of compression I was very sensitive in my book not to write about my girlfriends, partly out of respect for them. So that was a consideration. I thought that [the anecdote involving the reaction of a white girlfriend to the angry black play] was a useful theme to make about sort of the interactions that I had in the relationships with white girlfriends. And so, that occupies, what, two paragraphs in the book? My attitude was it would be dishonest for me not to touch on that at all … so that was an example of sort of editorially how do I figure that out?”

An over exercised story in The Atlantic makes good points on Rush Limbaugh and the corrections made by Politico. But the complaining about Obama and “vetting” is laughable.

Politico does get one thing correct and that is the Marinass book is potentially dangerous, because people don’t think of Barack Obama the way they did in 2008. No politician can withstand the pedestal and political god treatment, whether it’s John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, William Jefferson Clinton or, yes, even Barack Obama.

All along David Axelrod and David Plouffe portrayed Barack Obama as beyond your average politician. Michelle Obama has added to this myth exponentially, as has Valerie Jarrett and others around the President, because as the first African American president they’ve laid on him, with Obama accepting the charge, that he’s special, different and, as Oprah said, “The One.”

Through all my writing, including in my book, which focuses on the press’s complicity in allowing the myth of Obama to take hold as a political foundation, I’ve endeavored to portray Barack Obama as he is, which began through what I’d learned from digging around as much as my independent pocketbook would allow, back when the traditional and new media press, as well as cable, were laying hands on him. It looks like the media is finally deciding to consider that Barack Obama is indeed another politician who utilized his life story to craft a narrative that would sell.

Ask Marco Rubio how important a political narrative is in American politics.

We’re a Hollywood nation, so we love a good story and when someone tries to add truth to the mix that tarnishes the tale they end up paying for it in any number of ways.

But to hear the media whine about Barack Obama’s story is a bit much. This is the same national and new media I indict in my book, because of their clear bias and careless coverage throughout 2007-2008, while ignoring important clues, not to mention what they chose to focus on regarding Hillary Clinton, a dramatic political and journalistic tale that goes back 20 years. Ryan Lizza’s article in The New Yorker further proved I’d been on to something from the start.

Now the right’s going nuclear because it will help their fight to get Mitt Romney in the White House. Utilizing Obama’s fall from perfection, the media’s Rip van Winkle awakening to stir up a story in a dizzyingly boring election year, as well as the people’s nervousness about everything, Republicans have seized on the Marinass narrative.

Team Obama’s in for a bruising battle, because now everyone knows he’s not “The One.” No one is.


CORRECTION: The Maranass book will be out in June, not this month as originally stated, and has been corrected above.

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Chen Guangcheng Wants Asylum and a Way Out on ‘Hillary Clinton’s Plane’

By on 03 May 2012

Secy. Clinton and Pres. Hu Jintao

THINGS HAVE GOTTEN a lot stickier in China. For one thing and predictably, according to the New York Times, after having promised to “guarantee his freedom and rights, and the U.S. made some efforts,” according to Chen’s wife, things have turned south.

Another development is that according to Chen, American officials, “not those from the embassy but others,” urged him to leave the U.S. embassy as quickly as possible. This information comes from an interview with the Daily Beast that hasn’t been widely picked up until today, the details emerging complicating the plot.

Melinda Liu of the DB has known Chen for over 10 years and talked to him from his hospital bed where he was being treated after leaving the U.S. embassy, with a foot injury that requires using a wheelchair or crutches to travel. Liu reports he was scared and crying when they spoke. There are practical issues in getting Chen out, however.

But in order to go abroad, Chen and his family need passports—and in order to apply for them, the family would have to go back to Shandong, where the provincial thugs are waiting. “If the U.S. can intervene, and if the Chinese central government can make a phone call, those passports can be ready in a day. It might require a diplomatic push,” said Fu hopefully. “Nothing would make me happier than to get Chen and his family onto Hillary’s plane out of there.”

And nothing would thrill Chen more, either. “Please try to contact the embassy to send someone over here. I need your help, I’m absolutely, absolutely ready to fly out on Hillary Clinton’s plane. Please tell the embassy what I’m saying, Meiyuan,” he pleaded from his hospital room, using my Chinese name. “I don’t know why the Americans didn’t answer my phone calls.”

The picture emerging from the diplomatic efforts by the U.S. are murky still, but they’re turning darker in details.

When U.S. officials escorted him out of the U.S. embassy shortly after 3 p.m. Wednesday, Chen thought he’d extracted a promise that at least one of them would stay with him at the hospital, he said. “Many Americans were with me while I checked into the hospital and doctors examined me. Lots of them,” he told me from his hospital bed, where he’s being treated for broken bones in one foot, an injury sustained when he fell after climbing a wall during his daring escape from house arrest late last month. “But when I was brought to the hospital room, they all left. I don’t know where they went.” The ordeal was all the more bewildering because Chen is blind and was hurt during his escape; he needs crutches or a wheelchair to move around.

Chen also tells the Daily Beast that once he was in the hospital, getting fed was a struggle and when he tried to call the U.S. embassy nobody answered.

Tweets from Zeng Jinyan, who is married to an activist friend of Chen, also paint a different portrait.

Channel 4 News interviewed Chen, the video and translation of the story is below. They report Chen never told the U.S. he wanted to leave the embassy, because he didn’t have enough information to make that decision. “He did not leave voluntarily,” said a Channel 4 News producer.




This column has been updated.

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Enter the Swift Boat Narrative on Obama’s OBL Decision

By on 01 May 2012

MICHAEL HASTINGS KNOWS the meaning of being swift-boated, as does Buzzfeed boss Ben Smith.

The swift boat headline is a winner, even if the usage and examples are incorrect, with the most important element of this story a buried lede that has nothing to do with swift-boating and could be a blockbuster if Pres. Obama’s opponents pick it up.

Of course, for that to happen people would have to keep two opposing thoughts in their head simultaneously, something that is rarely accomplished in U.S. politics. Those thoughts are that Pres. Obama earned bragging rights for okaying the OBL raid that was superbly executed, but that there is legitimate criticism coming from SEAL Team Six about what happened afterward.

Hastings begins by unleashing a torrent of speculative assumptions from a reporter usually known for sourcing and unbiased stories, though he eventually gets to the juice. A snippet from Hastings today:

But as the stagey outrage over the politicization of foreign policy from Mitt Romney and his Republican allies gained momentum over this past weekend, White House officials started to have their doubts. Was spiking the football, again, and again, and again, in a public such a good idea? Was it necessary? Was the campaign in Chicago, White House officials wondered, going too far?

Like Kerry’s war record, the vulnerability to the president’s Bin Laden story isn’t so much from the other side, as it from those who can claim the mantle of veteran. It wouldn’t be surprising to see the website: navysealsagainstobama.com sprout up soon. Sure, military servicemen are accustomed to being exploited by both the left and the right. But that strategy can have its weaknesses, too. If the assault on the Bin Laden narrative continues, and if the anger expressed in private by the SEALs remains very public, the campaign might be forced to retreat.

One can only imagine who these unnamed “White House officials” are, but someone at 1600 better get a grip on these leaks, because in a tough election cycle they can be a politician’s undoing, especially when it revolves a story so potentially explosive.

To “swift boat,” a subject on which I’m an expert, entails, in part, fabricating a damaging fantasy for partisan reasons, that hits the politician where he’s seen to be strongest. It is to associate a political opponent through a lie that attacks his or her credibility, wrapped in a smear campaign, that hits at the heart of an issue that makes his candidacy popular.

The reason the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth were calamitous for Kerry’s campaign is that they took aim at his Silver Star in an offensive attack against a Democratic war hero that unpacked his bravery through misrepresentation and when that didn’t work utter bullshit, with Kerry caught flat-footed out of disbelief anyone would buy it. This tactic was eventually replicated against three-limb amputee and hero vet Max Cleland as well. It wasn’t the actions of either war hero in battle that were actually at issue, though swift-boating questioned their bravery and patriotism, but the fact that they were Democrats, with their opponents waging war on them because of it.

Swift-boating Obama would require vaunted heroes to lie, defame and concoct a narrative against the commander in chief, getting themselves dirty in the process, because swiftboating is never about truth. It’s about opportunity, along with the actors willing to play their parts for partisan gain, at all cost.

The first problem with Hastings swift boat narrative begins here:

What was supposed to be an easy win—a victory lap on the anniversary of Bin Laden’s death, trumping up the president’s most militant moment—appeared to be slipping away.

According to whom? Republicans? SEAL Team Six members, current and former? Where’s the evidence that this is true, beyond Hastings putting his reputation behind words that come out of nowhere with no proof, but do support the political narrative people attacking Pres. Obama want to push.

Next from Hastings is something that actually matters and has absolutely nothing to do with swift-boating.

The frustration—or, even anger—within the SEAL community is real, and has been brewing for months, particularly among a politically conservative core of operators. It started immediately after the raid, with questions among the Special Forces and intelligence community of whether the president should have waited to announce the kill to exploit the intelligence cache at Osama’s compound. It simmered after a Chinook helicopter was shot down, killing 30 Americans, 22 of them Navy SEALs from Team Six.

Was it a coincidence, SEALs asked themselves, catastrophe hit Team Six so soon after being named as the team responsible for the killing?

Hastings is reporting a very substantive allegation here that’s the opposite of swift-boating, saying that Navy SEALS in the Team Six unit have questioned whether Pres. Obama’s naming them as OBL’s assassins got members of their team killed.

Coming from Hastings, whose reporting has been golden since the career ending interview with Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, continuing in his book, which has been widely lauded, this should send shock waves through Obama reelect, with someone in the “war room” investigating it immediately, if only to be prepared.

John Kerry wasn’t prepared.

May the gods help Obama reelect if the right-wing rabble of Rush and Sean decide to take hold of this one, because they’ll never let go. Jerome Corsi is likely investigating it as you read this column. Having been burned on his birther book, he’s got to be chomping at the bit to find another angle to try to take down Obama.

The allegation Hastings floats has nothing to do with being swift-boated, but is a serious issue that could be exploited, which is quite separate from the scurrilous partisan skullduggery that is at the heart of what it means to swift boat your opponent.

Everyone’s still writing about the political gamesmanship going on, missing the potential news in Hastings’ Buzzfeed piece.

It’s dangerous for Pres. Obama, because if utilized through a coherent political strategy, it would bring the “naive” charge right back to Obama’s door. Republicans could contend that Pres. Obama openly naming SEAL Team Six put them in danger and got them killed, an event that happened long before the commander in chief rightfully took credit for okaying the daring raid.

However, concocting the naive narrative without proof would indeed be swift-boating and it’s something Rush, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter crowd, aided by wingnut bloggers, could easily manufacture and they wouldn’t need anything but Michael Hastings’ Buzzfeed piece to launch it.

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UK Report: Murdoch Unfit, ‘Lied and Cheated — Blackmailed and Bullied’

By on 01 May 2012

ACCUSED OF “WILLFUL BLINDNESS,” in the global News of the World scandal, Rupert Murdoch has now been humiliated thoroughly by a new official report that signals the most direct threat to his reign and power that is clearly coming to a dishonorable end.

From CNN:

Global media tycoon Rupert Murdoch is not a “fit and proper person” to run a major international company, British lawmakers investigating phone hacking at his tabloid the News of the World reported Tuesday.

The ruling could prompt British regulators to force him to sell his controlling stake in British Sky Broadcasting, a significant part of his media empire.

[...] Tom Watson, the Labour lawmaker who has long been one of the fiercest critics of Murdoch, was blistering in a press conference announcing the parliamentary findings. “These people corrupted our country. They have brought shame on our police force and our Parliament. They lied and cheated — blackmailed and bullied and we should all be ashamed when we think how we cowered before them for so long,” he said.

The scathing verdict on Rupert Murdoch was bipartisan.

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An Example of Why People Should Hate Politics

By on 30 April 2012

It was kind of like how the Romans used to, you know, conquer those villages in the Mediterranean. They’d go into a little Turkish somewhere and they’d find the first five guys they say and they’d crucify them. And then, you know, that town was really easy to manage for the next few years. – Al Armendariz in 2010, former EPA official

ARE YOU KIDDING me?

An Obama EPA official resigns over conservative pressure about something he said in 2010?

Sen. James Inhofe, best known for “scar[ing] the crap out of” airport workers by flying erratically, and one of the most ignorant people to ever serve in the U.S. Senate, a global warning denier and general buffoon of all things 21st century, is behind it. That the Administration caved to this cretin is stunning, because Inhofe has absolutely no credibility whatsoever, unless you’re so far right you long ago lost sight of center.

Inhofe’s craziness led him to oppose the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea, which is little known, but critical to military operations, as well as maritime security. Stephen Hadley, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs in the Bush administration, even called Inhofe out on his idiocy back in 2007.

Dave Weigel outlined how it all began to snowball last week. It began with Jay Carney “giving away the store” with a reporter, which opened the door to a If Obama Is About Hope And Change What Is This Guy Doing At The EPA moment?

When did Democrats become afraid of their own shadow? … .. Strike that.

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Days of Our French Lives, the Sarkozy – Strauss-Kahn Downfall Edition

By on 30 April 2012

QUITE A DOGFIGHT has broken out in France, with just a week left before the election. Evidently, Dominique Strauss-Kahn is having a very hard time accepting that his oversize libido blew his chances to be president of France.

The story was detailed on Friday by the UK Guardian, which interviewed Strauss-Kahn, who vented his spleen over his poor rich man’s humiliation that was precipitated by his gargantuan ego and now infamous appetite for women.

In the more than two hours we speak, it becomes clear that Strauss-Kahn is convinced that his downfall was choreographed by his political enemies. They may not have gone so far as to set up the encounter with Diallo, he now accepts, but he believes they did play a role, through intercepted phone calls, in making sure that the hotel maid went to the police and thus turned a private tryst into a public scandal.

The media in France has recently reported, based on interviews with French intelligence officers, that he had become a target of the country’s intelligence service in 2011. I ask him whether he believes the targeting of him by French intelligence, the interception of his calls, and the surveillance in New York are related. “It would appear that more was involved here than mere coincidence,” he replies, with characteristic understatement.

He also blames French officials for the fact that he had to languish in jail in New York and had to undergo the public humiliation that brought. He thought he would be released immediately on bail – as would be normal for someone as prominent as he was. But later that day the deal was abruptly terminated. It has been reported in the French press that the New York prosecutor, Cyrus Vance, had received information bearing on the case from one or more French officials. At the bail hearing, the assistant district attorney said that unverified “additional information [was] being provided on a daily basis regarding [Strauss-Kahn's] behaviour and background.”

Strauss-Kahn’s unseemly whine has caused his last allies to bolt and the man who’s poised to be the next French president, François Hollande, to cut him off.

The BBC got Pres. Sarkozy’s response:

The charges were later dropped, but he has since been embroiled in new allegations that he was involved in a prostitution ring.

On the campaign trail Mr Sarkozy dismissed Mr Strauss-Kahn’s interpretation of events.

“Enough is enough!” he said, “I would tell Mr Strauss-Kahn to explain himself to the law.”

This comes as a delicious web rumor, which Sarkozy is calling “grotesque,” but further complicates his efforts to win reelection, which wasn’t going so well in the first place.

A left-wing political website, Mediapart, claims to have documentary evidence that Mr Sarkozy’s 2007 presidential campaign received 50m euros ($66m) from the Gaddafi regime.

The document – dated 2006 and written in Arabic – appears to have been signed by the then Libyan foreign intelligence chief Musa Kusa.

It refers to an “agreement in principle to support the campaign for the candidate for the presidential elections, Nicolas Sarkozy, for a sum equivalent to 50m euros.”

Awkward.

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Why Is DOJ Wasting Money on John Edwards Soap Opera?

By on 27 April 2012

Guilt and innocence turn on one question: Was the money that Edwards used to keep Rielle Hunter in quiet comfort a campaign contribution? Edwards says no; the cash came as gifts from rich friends who wanted to help him deal with a private indiscretion. The feds say yes; the money was intended to cover up an affair that would have sunk Edwards’ campaign for the White House, thus making it a campaign donation. – Los Angeles Times

I still can’t figure it out. What he’s done is absolutely despicable and criminally stupid, but I cannot find the actual crime.

If you want to know the absurdity of our criminal justice system, the John Edwards trial gives the bookend example to the prejudice faced by the poor and people of color. A potential 30-year sentence is obscene, not to mention never been given for what Edwards is accuse of doing, as far as I can tell from the commentary available.

Speaking of absurd, Rielle Hunter is still begging for secrecy. The judge told her she’s nuts.

The Department of Justice should be pulled on the carpet for the waste of what will be millions of dollars on this “Days of Our Lives” political soap opera.

The idiot pretty boy deserves scorn, which he’s gotten by the Google page, but this is 2012 and the “crime” dates back years and the case will likely go on for years, through appeals, if the jury goes against Edwards.

As for Andrew Young, I wouldn’t trust that schmuck, who wrote one thing in his tell all book, having to also sign off that everything in it was the truth, but is now turning his prior statements into confetti.

Campaign finance laws from 2008 have also been turned upside down at this point.

More from the Los Angeles Times, which matches much of the commentary around the sphere:

Thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court, corporations are now “people” and they are free to donate unlimited amounts of money to “super PACs” that “independently” promote candidates for president.

A corporate super PAC would have come in handy in 2008 when Edwards was trying to hide his girlfriend from his dying wife.

As for John Edwards allegedly calling Rielle Hunter “a crazy slut,” he should look in the mirror, something Edwards used to be very fond of doing.

Another part of the story that’s slowly being revealed is what Elizabeth Edwards knew and when she knew it, though only snippets of that have made it in the news. Suffice it to say that she knew more earlier than was previously believed.

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Privacy Erodes Further

By on 27 April 2012

Even though CISPA is styled as a ‘cybersecurity’ bill, it explicitly allows the Department of Homeland Security and other government agencies like the National Security Agency (NSA) to use your information for ‘national security’ purposes—expanding the bill far beyond its purported goal. – CISPA, “National Security,” and the NSA’s Ability to Read Your Emails

House Republicans have decided that the Fourth Amendment is only a suggestion, though this is just a continuation of what Republicans and Democrats are doing in the name of “national security.”

CISPA, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, was passed by the House this week. It removes privacy firewalls for average citizens so that companies can share private data they retrieve with military agencies tasked with national security.

“The administration wants the U.S. government to have less access to information not an unlimited amount as the House Republican leadership and backers of [the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act] propose,” the official said in an emailed statement. – The Hill

This is a joke, though it’s certainly not funny. Pres. Obama has threatened a veto.

It follows Attorney General Eric Holder’s move in March that gives the National Counter Terrorism Center (NCTC) new guidelines that, among other things, allows private data to be stored for longer periods of time, even if a citizen is not involved in any crime whatsoever.

…relaxing restrictions on how long data on Americans who have no known tie to terrorism may be stored. The old guidelines said data on innocent Americans must be deleted promptly, which the agency interpreted to mean if no tie to terrorism was detected within 180 days.

The new guidelines are intended to allow the center to hold on to information about Americans for up to five years, although the agencies that collected the information — and can negotiate about how it will be used — may place a shorter life span on it.

Privacy in the first decade of the 21st century, now moving into our second, has quickly become a quaint notion.

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From Pit Bull and Pepper Spray to Concealed Carry Vigilantism

By on 26 April 2012

“Don’t use pepper spray,” he told the Zimmermans, according to a friend. “It’ll take two or three seconds to take effect, but a quarter second for the dog to jump you,” he said. “Get a gun.” – Reuters

When the homeowners association asked George Zimmerman to begin a neighborhood watch, according to a Reuters report, he took it very seriously. In violation of neighborhood watch rules, Zimmerman began carrying his Kel-Tec on his patrols. It was the uncorking.

More from Reuters:

A criminal justice student who aspired to become a judge, Zimmerman also concerned himself with the safety of his neighbors after a series of break-ins committed by young African-American men.

[...] “Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. I’m black, OK?” the woman said, declining to be identified because she anticipated backlash due to her race. She leaned in to look a reporter directly in the eyes. “There were black boys robbing houses in this neighborhood,” she said. “That’s why George was suspicious of Trayvon Martin.”

The fact remains that George Zimmerman pursued Trayvon Martin with a concealed carry and Stand Your Ground gun laws bolstering his sense of civic duty that didn’t come with the training required to do what amounted to the job of policemen and women.

Then came 2005, and a series of troubles. Zimmerman’s business failed, he was arrested, and he broke off an engagement with a woman who filed a restraining order against him.

That July, Zimmerman was charged with resisting arrest, violence, and battery of an officer after shoving an undercover alcohol-control agent who was arresting an under-age friend of Zimmerman’s at a bar. He avoided conviction by agreeing to participate in a pre-trial diversion program that included anger-management classes.

Trayvon Martin represents the lightning strike in the middle of a perfect storm that begins with George Zimmerman’s life and his inability to deal with his own anger.

Following Trayvon Martin was wrong and Zimmerman was told not to pursue, which bears repeated reminding.

Targeting a person while carrying a weapon, with no crime having been committed and no suspicious activity involved to alarm, is felonious intent to play judge and jury of a man, because of other events that have no relation and can only be decided by law enforcement.

Zimmerman’s multicultural background is interesting, which a jury will consider, if this gets beyond the Stand Your Ground hearing, with the case allowed to go forward.

The fact remains that with the neighborhood robberies allegedly committed by African Americans as background information, George Zimmerman’s overblown sense of vigilantism pushed him to follow the black man wearing a hoodie.

There was no action by Trayvon Martin to warrant George Zimmerman tailing him, let alone pulling the trigger and ending his life.

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Is Newt Still Around?

By on 24 April 2012



It’s primary Tuesday and Newt Gingrich is hanging on by his pudgy little fingers. But for how much longer?

Newt Gingrich hinted he may withdraw from the presidential race if he has a poor showing in the Delaware primary Tuesday – a state where he has been actively campaigning for several weeks. – First Read, MSNBC

Politico’s Ginger Gibson, who’s been covering Gingrich, isn’t so sure it’s lost.

Meanwhile, Pres. Obama gets slammed by a Republican group in the video above, with Solyndra and the GSA scandal rich fodder for the right.

For those following the primary results tonight, Buzzfeed and Comedy Central are joining together in a Twitter extravaganza. Watch it at Comedy Central Indecision or Buzzfeed’s FB page, starting at 7:30 p.m.

Oh, and Ann Romney evidently hit it out of the park in Connecticut. I’ve been talking about Mrs. Romney since she started opening for her husband. She’s got the gift.

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It’s Not ‘Walking While White,’ It’s the Rodney King Syndrome

By on 24 April 2012



“Justice for Trayvon” mob beatings are now a rising cause for the right, with a horrific crime leaving one man in critical condition.

Elevating “walking while white” is the most absurdly tortured false equivalency someone can hoist as an answer to George Zimmerman killing Trayvon Martin. But that’s what Erick Erickson was happy to legitimize when he drew attention to this post via Twitter.

And this is the third racially-motivated attack in which the attackers explicitly cited “Justice for Trayvon” as a motivation or excuse for the brutal attacks.

1. The Baltimore Beating. This was the videotaped gang attack on a drunk St. Patrick’s day reveler whose crime was Walking While White (Content Warning).

Baltimore’s Chief of Police says it’s not a hate crime. He’s very worried about the politics.

There’s one problem with that: the attackers say otherwise. The man identifying himself as the cameraman who giddily filmed the attack on the white tourist says…

“Lil Darren” is clearly an idiot. He’s angry, too. His reaction to the Trayvon Martin killing triggered it, which reminded me of another situation that lit another city on fire.

I lived in Los Angeles during the Rodney King beating, trial and riots that engulfed part of the city. When King was beaten by police, which was caught on tape, the outrage was understandably red hot. The tape of the beating was played over and over again on TV. But when the venue to try the policemen involved was changed to Simi Valley, a bleached landscape where many police and firemen live, the outcome was set, many residents thought, including myself. When the verdict came down everyone knew what was coming.

When the National Guard was brought in, I was downtown as an independent writer and watched the tanks move in to the city. It was surreal.

The tragic beating of Matthew Owens, seen in the video above, which was fueled by a “justice for Trayvon” temper explosion, is the same sort of thing and it’s despicable.

What it’s not about is the ridiculous notion of “walking while white.” There’s no white man burden in America, though the right’s been stoking this since affirmative action was born.

It’s about fury.

It’s about the righteous injustice African Americans have had to contend with for over a century. Mobile, Alabama, where Matthew Owens was beaten to within an inch of his life, has a deep history of racial bigotry and violence. That a mob in Mobile could relate to the gunning down of Trayvon Martin through violence shouldn’t shock America.

“Driving while black” is part of the “trying to hail a taxi in New York while being black,” which is part of “walking while black,” all of which can lead to arrest, walking home, or getting killed, especially if you’re wearing a hoodie.

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Romney Gets ‘Rare and Coveted’ Gepetto Check for Buffet Rule Attack

By on 24 April 2012

From Glenn Kessler:

The fiscal year 2013 federal budget is projected to have $3.803 trillion in outlays. So, dividing $5 billion into that figure, you end up with the Buffett Rule covering 0.131 percent of the budget. Given that there are 8,760 hours in a year, that works out to just over 11 hours.

[...] This dispute over baselines — and how they can be manipulated — is a pretty good example of Washington dysfunction. But, within those constraints, Romney’s math adds up. One could even say he was generous, since he could have argued that the Buffett Rule would pay for no government in its first two years.

Romney gets the rare and coveted Geppetto Checkmark.

What’s needed as a start is to employ the Buffet, aka Romney, Rule, while simultaneously rescinding all of the Bush tax cuts, including for the middle class, then extend the money line upward on taxable income for Social Security, coupled with bringing troops home from countries that can now take care of themselves.

But for now, Romney has outmaneuvered Obama on the Buffet rule, though it’s doubtful anyone cares. But it does illustrate what happens when the political argument for taxes isn’t about something broader than money. Symbolism matters.

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John Edwards Goes to Trial

By on 23 April 2012

“If his affair went public it would destroy his candidacy, and he knew it,” said prosecutor David Harbach. “His mistress was a loose cannon, and he knew it. He made a choice to accept hundreds of thousands of dollars. He made a choice to break the law. That is why we are here.” [...] “John Edwards is not afraid of the truth. He welcomes it,” said Edwards’ attorney Allison Van Laningham. “The truth may be a sin, but it is not a crime. John Edwards has not asked us to paint a picture of him as virtuous. … He admits he cheated. He admits he lied.” – John Edwards Trial: ‘Truth May Be a Sin … Not a Crime’

It began today.

Walter Shapiro* has an interesting piece up today on the tragic trial of the idiot pretty boy. Here’s one important snippet:

I am also told that there was an innocent, if comic, reason why Mellon shrouded the donations in secrecy. She wrote the checks to her decorator Bryan Huffman, ostensibly for furniture (“antique Charleston chair” read one memo), and the money was immediately signed over to Young’s wife. The subterfuge, I am told, was not designed to fool the FEC or federal prosecutors. Instead, the hush-hush maneuvering was designed to deceive the one person she feared—her sternly proper lawyer Alex Forger—and protect her from another lawyerly lecture on the folly of her infatuation with Edwards.

Josh Gerstein’s take is also worth a read.

It gets down to the intent of John Edwards, which no one knows but him.

Edwards better hope the jury has a different opinion of him than the latest poll. Though it should be understood that the people questioned in the polling give us our current crop of politicians in office. What do they know?

It takes a lot of courage and love for his daughter to stand beside him. He’s lucky to have her and I bet at this point in his life he knows it.

*The author of the article was misidentified as Jonathan Chait, but has been corrected.

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George Zimmerman Released from Jail

By on 23 April 2012

From the Los Angeles Times:

George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch volunteer who shot an unarmed teenager, was released from jail about midnight Sunday, two days after a Florida judge set his bond at $150,000.

Zimmerman’s attorney, Mark O’Mara, said in court Friday that Zimmerman would probably continue to live in hiding while he awaited his trial date, as he had done for weeks leading up to his April 11 arrest on second-degree murder charges in the slaying of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.

Zimmerman surrendered his passport, will be on a curfew, while wearing an electronic monitoring device.

The state of Florida attorneys wanted $1 million bond or none at all.

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Beyond Timothy Leary and Valley of the Dolls: Psychedelic Drugs and Healing in the 21st Century

By on 22 April 2012

“Rick Doblin has done a lot for the field, but he is more of a populist,” Grob says. “We need careful and controlled scientific studies showing the efficacy of these drugs so funding can continue.” Broader awareness of these sorts of end-of-life psychedelic studies could be good for everyone, the researchers say. “If insurance companies knew about our outcomes, they might get a lot more interested in what we’re doing here.” Griffiths continued: “When you make people less afraid to die, then they’re less likely to cling to life at a huge cost to society. After having such a transcendent experience, individuals with terminal illness often show a markedly reduced fear of dying and no longer feel the need to aggressively pursue every last medical intervention available. Instead they become more interested in the quality of their remaining life as well as the quality of their death.” – How Psychedelic Drugs Can Help Patients Face Death, by Lauren Slater

It’s the 21st century, but enlightenment is a long way away.

We were better off and on the launching pad to a higher plain back in the 1960s. Even Richard Nixon believed in national health care and that was over 4 decades ago.

You’ve got to wonder when America will ever grow up. Watching the current bottom-feeder generation of politicians, it doesn’t look like it will be anytime soon.

Candidate Obama promised to keep a hands off policy on medical marijuana outlets. His alter ego, Pres. Obama, has done the opposite.

From Rolling Stone in February 2012, Obama’s War on Pot:

…Back when he was running for president in 2008, Barack Obama insisted that medical marijuana was an issue best left to state and local governments. “I’m not going to be using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws on this issue,” he vowed, promising an end to the Bush administration’s high-profile raids on providers of medical pot, which is legal in 16 states and the District of Columbia.

But over the past year, the Obama administration has quietly unleashed a multi­agency crackdown on medical cannabis that goes far beyond anything undertaken by George W. Bush. The feds are busting growers who operate in full compliance with state laws, vowing to seize the property of anyone who dares to even rent to legal pot dispensaries, and threatening to imprison state employees responsible for regulating medical marijuana. With more than 100 raids on pot dispensaries during his first three years, Obama is now on pace to exceed Bush’s record for medical-marijuana busts. “There’s no question that Obama’s the worst president on medical marijuana,” says Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project. “He’s gone from first to worst.”

It’s not all that surprising, but is just another example of the untrustworthy nature of politicians, Barack Obama just being the latest among them.

There is no medical reason to keep marijuana out of the hands of the sick or dying.

What this is about is money.

There isn’t a national politician today who will man the line against moneyed interests on behalf of we the people. Neither Barack Obama or Mitt Romney would dare, both of whom are fueled by the same elite few who control the levers of financial power.

The same reason Pres. Obama did a back room deal with big Pharma, as well as private insurance companies, on health care. It comes down to the issue of no vision, no courage, no larger concept of health care beyond 20th century medicine that is stuck in antiquated means of treating symptoms, while never going beyond, which should include offering a better quality of living for the sick.

I talked about my own journey through an athletic injury recently for Zocalo Public Square, when I utilized a trio of alternative therapies to navigate stratospheric pain, with acupuncture finally showing me the way up and out. None of the alternative avenues were covered by health insurance.

“Sugar Blues” was written decades ago, yet it was some sort of scandal that “60 Minutes” recently did a report that sugar kills. This is not news. We’re stuck on stupid where our own health is concerned, because people won’t even accept that much of it depends on our own lifestyle, behavior and actions.

Doctors aren’t trained on nutrition and prevention, because there’s no money in it. Women face the same challenges with doctors at mid-life, with bio-identical hormones a mystery to most doctors, while being out of reach for many and not covered by insurance. But they offer a sparkling way through the toughest life gateway a girl faces, which threatens her very sexual nature. It’s not a coincidence that marriages falter when women are going through the thunder road hormone journey, while men are desperately clinging to their flagging machismo. Men face similar struggles, but as easy as it is for them to get Viagra, testosterone cremes are equally available.

However, these life chapters are separate from life threatening illnesses or terminal diagnoses.

The first step out of this hamster wheel is medical marijuana. But people actually still believe marijuana is a gateway drug, with infotainment cable shows parroting popular anecdotes made for people who are scared of their own shadows. Gateway drug hocus-pocus is the most preposterously ignorant assumption the uninformed weed trackers have today.

Remember when Rep. Ron Paul was made a laughing stock for his comment on heroin? He was on to something about personal liberties and drugs, with legalization and regulation the answer, even if heroin isn’t the most effective example, unless you’re recovering from invasive surgery and you’re in the hospital and need to mask the post-op pain. We need someone with the courage of Ron Paul, but who also has the integrity of a liberal to acknowledge libertarianism in the modern age also requires a government safety net, because of the corrupt nature of the global economy and concentrated wealth. Someone who is equally respectful that women’s individual liberties cannot be abridged by either ideology, religiosity or out of convenience.

Now comes a fascinating and enlightened article in the New York Times

Grob and his colleagues are part of a resurgence of scientific interest in the healing power of psychedelics. Michael Mithoefer, for instance, has shown that MDMA is an effective treatment for severe P.T.S.D. Halpern has examined case studies of people with cluster headaches who took LSD and reported their symptoms greatly diminished. And psychedelics have been recently examined as treatment for alcoholism and other addictions.

Despite the promise of these investigations, Grob and other end-of-life researchers are careful about the image they cultivate, distancing themselves as much as possible from the 1960s, when psychedelics were embraced by many and used in a host of controversial studies, most famously the psilocybin project run by Timothy Leary. Grob described the rampant drug use that characterized the ’60s as “out of control” and said of his and others’ current research, “We are trying to stay under the radar. We want to be anti-Leary.” Halpern agreed. “We are serious sober scientists,” he told me.

Being “anti-Leary” is always the first step, because if you aren’t take seriously the game is over. As an anti-Leary libertarian, though his philosophy is misogynistic, that’s one thing Ron Paul offered that scared so many zombie Republicans and Democrats, though he remains naive that a safety net in the modern era isn’t foundational to a humane society.

Time Magazine did a story on ecstasy back in 2000, with a section tucked into it that pointed to the same types of properties the Times article is pointing to today.

Sue Stevens, the woman who took it in 1997 with her husband Shane–he has since died of kidney cancer–learned about the drug from a mutual friend of hers and Doblin’s. She believes e helped Shane find the right attitude to fight his illness, and she helps Doblin advocate for limited legal use. Soon his association will help fund the first approved study of MDMA in psychotherapy, involving 30 victims of rape in Spain diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. In this country, the FDA has approved only one study. In 1995 Dr. Charles Grob, a ucla psychiatrist, used it as a pain reliever for end-stage cancer patients. In the first phase of the study, he concluded the drug is safe if used in controlled situations under careful monitoring.

Raves, dance clubs and the drinking crowd have taken the healing properties of drugs like ecstasy and MDMA, even marijuana, out of the health equation and put the marketing in the hands of establishment fogies, big Pharma, the government and politicians who don’t care about quality of life for people in the throes of dealing with their own mental crises, and even their very mortality. These same people hounded Dr. Kervorkian through the end of his life, even if all he was doing is helping adults manage their own passing, the most personal of decisions.

The story in the Times is important. It talks about alternative medicine and healing when dealing with the most humbling moments of our life.

When you look at our politics, however, whether it’s Barack Obama or Mitt Romney, as well as the people elected to Congress, there’s absolutely no evidence that an enlightenment epiphany is on the horizon. There is no one with the ethical fortitude to speak for people facing life-shattering illnesses or their own mortality, helping them get options beyond the conventional, which offer no relief in the process of healing or death, let alone a quality of life that allows a person to go out with dignity and grace, with a little laughter on the side.

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Wal-Mart Bribery Cover-Up in Mexico

By on 22 April 2012

I don’t shop at Wal-Mart.

Beyond their anti-union philosophy, I find going in to a Wal-Mart depressing. The stores are invariably a mess, the workers are unhappy, & getting a bargain shouldn’t come with a horrendous shopping experience. So, whenever a negative story appears about the mega-chain, I’m never surprised.

Explosive report from the New York Times:

The former executive gave names, dates and bribe amounts. He knew so much, he explained, because for years he had been the lawyer in charge of obtaining construction permits for Wal-Mart de Mexico.

Wal-Mart dispatched investigators to Mexico City, and within days they unearthed evidence of widespread bribery. They found a paper trail of hundreds of suspect payments totaling more than $24 million. They also found documents showing that Wal-Mart de Mexico’s top executives not only knew about the payments, but had taken steps to conceal them from Wal-Mart’s headquarters in Bentonville, Ark. In a confidential report to his superiors, Wal-Mart’s lead investigator, a former F.B.I. special agent, summed up their initial findings this way: “There is reasonable suspicion to believe that Mexican and USA laws have been violated.”

The lead investigator recommended that Wal-Mart expand the investigation.

Instead, an examination by The New York Times found, Wal-Mart’s leaders shut it down. [...]

This post has been updated.

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As the World Turns: Susan G. Komen Uzbekistan Edition

By on 21 April 2012

For whatever reason, Susan G. Komen for the Cure failed to fully vet its partner in Uzbekistan and assess the risks of working with them. – Due Diligence, Googoosha, and Komen for the Cure

Susan G. Komen is getting bad press and deserving it again. But this time they’re being mentioned with “the most hated woman in ‘rampantly corrupt’ Uzbekistan.”

One cable describes Miss Karimova and reads: ‘Most Uzbeks see Karimova as a greedy, power-hungry individual who uses her father to crush business people or anyone else who stands in her way … She remains the single most hated person in the country.’

Reports swirled this week that Susan G. Komen had gotten into the charity business with corrupt dictator-ette Gulnara Karimova, “the socialite, part-time pop star daughter” of Uzbek President Islam Karimov, as Foreign Policy described her this week.

In addition to her dad’s atrocious and well-publicized human rights record, Gulnara herself has been implicated in a range of illegal business practices, including essentially taking over rival companies at gunpoint. Then there are disturbing reports of widespread forced sterilizations of women in Uzbek hospitals and evidence that’s it’s being encouraged by the authorities.

Numerous reports reveal that organized crime and Karimov’s government are deeply linked, with the proximity to a raging war in Afghanistan having been a gold mine for him and his country, with his daughter in the middle of rumors flying about a possible squeeze play in Britain.

Since this story started spreading from Registan, Foreign Polcy and Wonkette, Susan G. Komen has been manning the phones. Their clean up pitch is that they’re not partnering with the notorious dictator’s daughter, but the National Breast Cancer Association of Uzbekistan.

The intent of Susan G. Komen to help women and fight breast cancer is not in question. The disarray at the Komen Foundation is and this incident is just more proof of fundraising scrambling amid an organization that is looking like amateurs while asking people to give money when donors have every right to be skeptical of where that money is actually going and who is involved with the charity to which they’re donating.

As for Afghanistan, there are salacious rumors swirling about Gulnara Karimova being her dad’s ambassador to the Court of St. James, with push back on this tale coming from all quarters.

Rumors are circulating that London has rejected the daughter of Uzbekistan’s strongman Islam Karimov as his ambassador to the Court of St. James’s. Gulnara Karimova, the self-styled glamorous society queen, has already served as Uzbekistan’s ambassador to Spain and representative to the United Nations in Geneva. If true, the rebuff could spell trouble for Britain’s Afghanistan exit plans.

Though the idea Gulnara would seek such a sinecure is not far-fetched, for now the main source seems to be Craig Murray, a scandalous former British ambassador to Tashkent known for his debauched parties and long-standing hatred for the Karimov regime.

The BBC’s Uzbek arm reports that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) denies any such ambassadorship.

You can read Craig Murray’s March account and decide for yourself.

The reason these salacious tidbits matter is that if Britain wants an easy exit from Afghanistan they’re going to need Islam Karimov’s help out of Uzbekistan or things could get messy, long and drawn out, complicating P.M. David Cameron’s life exponentially.

The next hire for Susan G. Komen if they’re going to delve into international charity partnerships is a foreign policy expert. Getting mired with the “kelptocratic Karimov state” soap opera is the last thing they need after their Planned Parenthood disaster. But it does fit a pattern of incompetence.

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ABC’s GMA Releases Photo Believed to Be Bloodied Head of George Zimmerman

By on 20 April 2012

“I am sorry for the loss of your son. I did not know how old he was. I thought he was a little bit older than I was,” Zimmerman said addressing Martin’s family directly. – ABC News

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When George Zimmerman chose to pursue Trayvon Martin, a series of events were set into motion that included a scuffle between the two men that ended in the teen’s death and Zimmerman being hit hard enough that his head became bloodied. The result is why the 911 dispatch operator specifically told George Zimmerman not to track Trayvon Martin in the first place.

In a hearing today, the judge ruled that George Zimmerman could be freed on $150,000 bond, but would be required to wear an electronic tracking device. However, Zimmerman will not be freed today, with meetings set on parameters of his bail release, including whether he can leave the state.

“Good Morning America” host Robin Roberts admitted that ABC can’t conclusively prove this photo is legitimate, but the network is sure enough to blast the photo out to their audience and stand by it.

Dan Abrams, who founded Mediaite, gave a thorough legal analysis on ABC, where he now works. Partial transcript via Mediaite:

“Even if George Zimmerman was injured in his fight,” said Abrams, “it doesn’t change the fact that the prosecutors clearly believe that Zimmerman was the aggressor. And if Zimmerman was the aggressor and they got into a fight, that doesn’t allow him to use deadly force. It simply — you can’t be losing a fight and then decide to use your gun to protect yourself.”

If Zimmerman doesn’t pursue, regardless that he was carrying a legally concealed carry weapon in a state where Stand Your Ground is the law, there is no altercation and Trayvon Martin isn’t killed.

Bill Cosby made a statement this week that this isn’t about race it’s about guns. It sounds to me like a statement from someone who doesn’t own a firearm. I say this because we do and I’ve had this debate with people who don’t.

Cosby’s statement begs the question, if Trayvon Martin was white, would George Zimmerman have followed him, suspecting something suspicious? Or are people going to once again contend it’s all about the hoodie?

This post has been updated.

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Ousted Secret Service Agent ‘Really Checking Out’ Sarah Palin

By on 20 April 2012

This puts a whole new meaning to the not so secret Secret Service motto, “wings up, rings off.”

The Washington Post identified David Randall Chaney, the Secret Service supervisor who was ousted in the Columbian prostitute scandal.

The UK Daily Mail has a blizzard of photos of him enjoying the ladies, one of which was Sarah Palin, when he was guarding her in 2008.

Sarah responds with a Trumpism, “Well, check this out, bodyguard, you’re fired.”

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