Bad Deeds for 6-29-2007

Key Presidential Aides Were Often Intentionally Kept Out of the Loop by Vice President Cheney on Important Decisions – For example, President Bush’s decision to try detainees in military commissions and strip them of their due process rights was not conveyed to Secretary of State Colin Powell:

“What the hell just happened?” Secretary of State Colin L. Powell demanded, a witness said, when CNN announced the order about military commissions that evening, Nov. 13, 2001.

In addition, the Post reported that a Cheney-commissioned Justice Department memo that advocated the legal justification for torture was kept out of Powell’s sight:

On June 8, 2004, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell learned of the two-year-old torture memo for the first time from an article in The Washington Post.

Last night (6-28), in an interview with Larry King, Powell criticized Cheney, saying, “[He] sometimes went directly to the president and the rest of us weren’t aware of what advice he was giving.” He also chastised the White House’s manner of doing business. “It was not a system where we routinely exposed all points of view,” he said.

Vice President Cheney Killed 70,000 Salmon , But Didn’t Shoot Them in the Face – personally contacted the Interior Department official in charge of the program to push for more irrigation water be delivered from the river to drought-stricken farmers and ranchers. Environmentalists and officials in California and Washington blame the federal policy, which critics say violated the Endangered Species Act, was responsible for the deaths of 70,000 salmon, whose corpses lined the banks of the river. The Post said the plan was enacted “because of Cheney’s intervention.”

Cheney Makes Up His Own Security Classified Document Designation -He calls it “Treated as Top Secret/SCI.” So it’s not really top secret, but Cheney treats it like it is. In other words, he doesn’t want you and I to know.

Enough Bad Deeds for the Unspeakable? -Seems to way outnumber Nixon’s. And maybe this is just scratching the surface.

Award of Noncompetitive Contracts Is Accelerating Dangerously – Last year’s congressional report on federal spending found that no-bid contracts and other forms of contracts awarded without full and open competition had risen from $67.5 billion in 2000 to $145.1 billion in 2005. This year’s report finds that spending on these no-bid and limited-competition contracts surged over $60 billion to $206.9 billion in 2006, the largest single-year increase ever. The value of federal contracts awarded without full and open competition has more than tripled since 2000. For the first time on record, more than half of federal procurement spending was awarded through no-bid and limited-competition contracts in 2006.

Waste, Fraud, and Abuse Continue to Soar – Last year’s report identified 118 contracts valued at $745.5 billion that had been found by government auditors to involve significant waste, fraud, abuse, or mismanagement. This year’s report identifies 189 contracts valued at $1.1 trillion that have been plagued by waste, fraud, abuse, or mismanagement. In the case of each of these 187 contracts, reports from the Government Accountability Office, the Defense Contract Audit Agency, agency inspectors general, or other independent federal oversight officials have documented significant overcharges, wasteful spending, or mismanagement over the last six years.

Bush Has Filled 105 Positions with Recess Appointments – As of June 4, President Bush has filled 105 positions with recess appointments during his terms as presidents. During President Clinton’s time in office, he had only filled 42 positions with recess appointments.

Bush Administration Communications Strategist Dan Bartlett Says Donald Rumsfeld Lied About “Mission Accomplished” – Donald Rumsfeld, claimed he took the phrase “mission accomplished” out of a draft of President Bush’s speech:

“I took ‘Mission Accomplished’ out,” Rumsfeld said. “I was in Baghdad and I was given a draft of that thing and I just died. And I said, it’s too inclusive. And I fixed it and sent it back. They fixed the speech but not the sign.”

But Dan Bartlett says Rumsfeld is lying.

“There was a comment Rumsfeld made in one of those books where he claimed that he took the phrase mission accomplished out of the speech itself but that he couldn’t get the banner pulled down. That’s just wrong. I went back and looked at every draft of the speech. That phrase was never in it.”

Both of these guys do agree it was the Bush Administration signed off on and printed up the “Mission Accomplished” banner, but remember when Press Secretary Scott McClellan proclaimed it was all the sailor’s idea?

Rudy Giuliani Blames President Clinton for the Sept. 11 Terrorist Attacks – Giuliani said that Clinton treated the 1993 World Trade Center bombing “as a criminal act instead of a terrorist attack which “emboldened other strikes” on U.S. targets. According to Giuliani, “The United States government, then President Clinton, did not respond.” Giuliani himself knows this attack on Clinton is false. Just last year, before he became a presidential candidate, Giuliani said, “The idea of trying to cast blame on Clinton [for the 9/11 attacks] is just wrong for many, many reasons, not the least of which is I don’t think he deserves it.”

Mitt Romney Strapped Family Dog to Roof of Car – Republican presidential candidate former Gov. Mitt Romney, R-Mass., has angered animal rights activists for strapping his dog to the roof of his car on a family trip from Boston to Ontario, Canada. According to the Boston Globe, in one of the family’s 12-hour drives to their family’s cottage in Canada over 25 years ago, Romney strapped a dog carrier to the roof of the car for the whole trip — with the family Irish setter, Seamus, inside. He probably got the idea from one of those Chevy Chase Vacation movies. Seamus protested in a scatological way, going to the bathroom on the roof of the car.

How Dick Cheney Dodged the Vietnam Draft – Elizabeth Cheney’s birth date falls precisely nine months and two days after the Selective Service publicly announced its policy to start drafting childless husbands. This would seem to indicate that the Cheneys, though doubtless planning to have children sometime, were seized with an untamable passion the moment Dick Cheney became vulnerable to the Vietnam draft.

Regards,

Jim