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T O P I C     R E V I E W
SeekingFreedom  - posted
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/09/22/white-house-steps-prevent-nea-confere nce/?test=latestnews

White House to Take Steps to Prevent Repeat of Controversial NEA Conference Call

"While we have no reason to believe that the NEA call violated the law, the appearance issues troubled some participants," Burton said. "It is the policy of the administration that grant decisions should be on the merits and that government officials should avoid even creating the incorrect appearance that politics has anything to do with these decisions."

Burton's statement detailing the steps runs counter to a report by ABCNews.com that indicated the White House issued specific guidelines. Burton's response outlined a series of steps rather than specific new rules, including the future issuance of a formal memo for White House staff and training sessions to "make sure the message gets across."

....

Several officials on the call -- including then-NEA Director of Communications Yosi Sergant, Buffy Wicks, deputy director of the White House Office of Public Engagement and Michael Skolnik, political director for hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons -- sought focused efforts by the artists in health care, energy and environment, education and community renewal.

"We're going to need your help, and we're going to come at you with some specific 'asks' here," said Buffy Wicks, deputy director of the White House Office of Public Engagement. "But we know that you guys are ready for it and eager to participate, so one we want to thank you, and two, I hope you guys are ready."

Sergant, who has since been reassigned by the NEA, said on the call that the effort was the first of a "brand new conversation."

He told the artists, "Pick -- I would encourage you to pick something, whether it's health care, education, the environment, you know, there's four key areas that the corporation has identified as the areas of service. My ask would be to apply artistic, you know, your artistic creative communities' utilities and bring them to the table."

.....

"You are the thought leaders," Skolnik told the artists. "You are the ones that, if you create a piece of art or promote a piece of art or create a campaign for a company, and tell our country and our young people sort of what to do and what to be in to; and what's cool and what's not cool. And so I'm hoping that through this group and the goal of all this and the goal of this phone call, is through this group that we can create a stronger community amongst ourselves to get involved in things that we're passionate about as we did during the campaign but continue to get involved in those things, to support some of the president's initiatives, but also to do things that we are passionate about and to push the president and push his administration."

 
The Bigfoot  - posted
A specific ASK here...

what's yer point and problem?
 
glassman  - posted
well, BF, as an artist who does not collect NEA money and isn't really interested in collecting it, i can speak to a problem here. There is an indication of favoritism in awarding NEA funds as opposed to merit based awards.

the
"funny" thing about this situation is that art is, always has been, and always will be subjective anyway.

if art is really about creativity? only a few experts can actually know what's new and creative because they have to spend decades to study what's already been done. Alot of the art world is simply about who you know, just like any other business.

has anything illegal happened here? not from what i've seen, is there even anything unusual going on? no.

does that mean it's OK? not really.
 
jdizz  - posted
big foot are you like the one who has to comment on everyones on why the post what they do?
 
The Bigfoot  - posted
I don't get the deal here. Because they want to send a message through artistic mediums? Every organization (profit and non) does this starting with a logo and ending with a $1,000,000 Superbowl minute. Government is no exception. Same things happened under other Presidents, its just that during those administrations peeps weren't quite as desperate to dig up dirt.

Instead of the Director of the NEA 'suggesting' themes or the president having the audacity to talk directly to children, in the last administration you had the appointed head of the EPA actively blocking his own departments efforts and altering their scientific publications. Tad bit o difference there but he got away with it for years whereas the word "foul" is being yelled at everything that moves in 2009.

jdizz, At least SF here linked an article to what he was talking about (along with a reference to a previous discussion within the thread title for those that were following along.) even if he didn't bother to put his own words down. You just did a one sentence question without any frame of reference at all. I don't care what you want to talk about man but yer not gonna get a quality discussion going unless you provide some information to base off of.
 
SeekingFreedom  - posted
I'll see your ASK, Big. And I'll raise you one TELL. [Razz]

Sorry for the 'hit and run' (cut and paste) posts, been a busy week at work and my wife and I celebrated our 6th anniversary this weekend. Not alot of time to post. (shrug)

As for this line, I was just curious about what the defense for it was going to be. Like Glass stated already, as our resident artist, the implication was that there would be grants made to those that 'played ball' and supported the regime.

So, we have a federal employee, with guidelines direct from the whitehouse (according to ABC news) making a 'middle of the night' conference call offering money for favorable art\media.

Now, the Hatch act aside, there are all sorts of ways this can be seen as improper in the least, and downright illegal on some points as Yosi Sergant, then the NEA's communications director, plainly knew...

"This is just the beginning," Sergant says on the call. "This is the first telephone call of a brand new conversation. We are just now learning how to really bring this community together to speak with the government. What that looks like legally. We're still trying to figure out the laws of putting government websites of Facebook and the use of Twitter. This is all being sorted out. We are participating in history as it's being made, so bear with us as we learn the language so that we can speak to each other safely. And we can really work together to move the needle to get stuff done."

Now, here is why I think this is important in a 'big picture' kind of way..

Once is an anomaly...

Twice is a coincidence...

Three, four and five are a pattern.

How many 'inartful wordings' and 'plausible deniability' situations is it going to take for some to realize that having lost the debate in the open, the admin is now looking to retake the battle behind the scenes.
 
glassman  - posted
i would hardly say the debate has been lost SF...

you may be able claim that after the next elections, but i doubt it.

the legal questions about the White House direclty using facebook and twitter are very real, but it's perfectly legal for the Democratic party or the GOp party to use them.

the questions exist simply because nobody has made rules at all YET.

i received direct snail mail from Reagan and Bush first back in the day so it's not like it's illegal to communicate with people, the question is simply one of who pays for the costs, and how.
 
T e x  - posted
It might be illegal for the Whitehouse (or Congress?) to use FB? or Twitter?

c'mon...

silly...or brilliant, but not illegal.
 
glassman  - posted
quote:
Originally posted by T e x:
It might be illegal for the Whitehouse (or Congress?) to use FB? or Twitter?

c'mon...

silly...or brilliant, but not illegal.

it might be. but most of the legal issue is about who pays for it.

there's also alot of unusual rules about White House communications.

like they all have to be documented and maintained for posterity

so a twitter communication from the white house should have to be "memorialised"
 
SeekingFreedom  - posted
And that's the issue with this particular snafu, Glass.

IF the DNC had commissioned the artwork in support of Obama, so be it.

IF Soros had commissioned the media folks to make documentaries to promote the agenda, so be it.

BUT, if federal tax dollars are being used to purchase propoganda that supports one party's agenda over another, especially when that money is specifically allocated for another purpose, then we run into issues that should be seriously looked into.
 
SeekingFreedom  - posted
Apparently Yosi Sergant has resigned (been let go) over the issue.

NEA Official Resigns Amid Controversy Over Obama Initiative

A senior official at the National Endowment for the Arts resigned Thursday following an uproar over his participation in a controversial conference call last month that some said encouraged artists to create works supporting President Obama's domestic agenda.

At the same time, White House officials released new guidelines on public outreach meetings, saying the conference call hosted in part by the NEA offered the Obama administration a "teaching moment" on separating policy and politics.

Yosi Sergant, who was director of communications for the NEA until he was reassigned this month in the wake of the controversy, offered his resignation Thursday afternoon, the NEA said in a written statement.

"His resignation has been accepted and is effective immediately," the statement read.


http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/09/24/white-house-issues-new-guidelines-con troversial-nea/
 
glassman  - posted
quote:
Originally posted by SeekingFreedom:
And that's the issue with this particular snafu, Glass.

IF the DNC had commissioned the artwork in support of Obama, so be it.

IF Soros had commissioned the media folks to make documentaries to promote the agenda, so be it.

BUT, if federal tax dollars are being used to purchase propoganda that supports one party's agenda over another, especially when that money is specifically allocated for another purpose, then we run into issues that should be seriously looked into.

propaganda? LOL gimme a break..

like this?

 -

Shepard Fairey’s “OBAMA HOPE (1 of 3”), original?mixed media stencil collage on cotton rag paper, 4’ x 6’, 2008.

With OBAMA mania running at full capacity, Hip-Hop culture mogul RUSSELL SIMMONS is offering one of official Barack Obama campaign artist SHEPARD FAIREY’s three original handmade fine art “Hope” editions in his annual ART FOR LIFE charity auction. Donated by the artist, Shepard’s mixed media stencil collage on cotton rag paper measures a whopping 4′ x 6′ and its sale benefits Simmons’ non-profit organization, Rush Philanthropic, that benefits the youth community of greater Manhattan through various arts-based charity outreach programs including the Rush Community Grants Program, Rush Arts Gallery and Resource Center, and Rush Kids among others (read more about it HERE). The bidding ends on July 16, 2008 12:16:00 PM (EDT), and as of Monday afternoon the going price was $40,000 USD.




http://supertouchart.com.s39439.gridserver.com/2008/07/14/nycnewsshepard-faireys -original-obama-artwork-at-russell-simmons-charity-auciton/
 
T e x  - posted
quote:
Originally posted by glassman:
quote:
Originally posted by T e x:
It might be illegal for the Whitehouse (or Congress?) to use FB? or Twitter?

c'mon...

silly...or brilliant, but not illegal.

it might be. but most of the legal issue is about who pays for it.

there's also alot of unusual rules about White House communications.

like they all have to be documented and maintained for posterity

so a twitter communication from the white house should have to be "memorialised"

I don't get the "problem," then. We pay for all Whitehouse..."stuff," no? Remodels, staff, some wardrobe, etc... Prolly there's some personal effects they're expected to provide out-of-pocket. I dunno, but keeping digital records of tweets and FB posts should be cheap enough, given comparative costs of paper records. Now, I can see limiting it to the top 2-3-or-4 "social media," rather than taking a presence on every TomDickHarry start-up.
 
T e x  - posted
BUT, if federal tax dollars are being used to purchase propoganda that supports one party's agenda over another, especially when that money is specifically allocated for another purpose, then we run into issues that should be seriously looked into.

Don't you think that happens every minute of every day? You may as well attack franking privileges.

You do realize, I hope, that these ancillary issues--even health care--are detracting from the main problem ===> market reform. As it stands now, we're losing impetus day-by-day for meaningful change in the SEC/DTCC/broker-dealer nexxus.

THAT should concern you, above all else.
 
SeekingFreedom  - posted
Glass, reread the last paragraph I quoted in the original post, especially the bolded text. Propaganda was exactly what they were asking for.

Tex, I won't argue with you about these things detracting from the truly important issues. We may disagree with who is responsible for the distractions and the motives behind it, but the fact that important issues are being ignored we can agree on.
 
glassman  - posted
quote:
Originally posted by SeekingFreedom:
Glass, reread the last paragraph I quoted in the original post, especially the bolded text. Propaganda was exactly what they were asking for.

Tex, I won't argue with you about these things detracting from the truly important issues. We may disagree with who is responsible for the distractions and the motives behind it, but the fact that important issues are being ignored we can agree on.

indeed. and we pay for propaganda every single day.

see the ad council [Wink]

the real question is whether such propaganda is aimed to influence someones vote.

i assume you have no problem with:

anti- smoking ads

anit-drug ads

anti-premarital sex ads

wearing seatbelts. maintaining a healthy body weight, uh wow, that's just off the top o'ma-head.....
 
The Bigfoot  - posted
Happy Anniversary Seek!
 
The Bigfoot  - posted
I think Obama sees Healthcare as more important than market reform Tex. I dunno, both are important.

I do agree that the longer it takes to get Healthcare reform passed the momentum behind strong market reform will fade. Hopefully market reform will be agenda #2 after he gets healthcare reform passed this year and then Education will be for year 3.
 
The Bigfoot  - posted
quote:
Originally posted by SeekingFreedom:

BUT, if federal tax dollars are being used to purchase propoganda that supports one party's agenda over another, especially when that money is specifically allocated for another purpose, then we run into issues that should be seriously looked into.

You mean like how Julie MacDonald used Federal Dollars allocated to protect the environment to edit scientific research so that she could delist endangered species that would have retained thier protected status had she not altered the data?

That kind of misuse of federal dollars to support one party's agenda over another??

There is no lost debate and you are grasping for straws my friend. The worst thing you can come up with is that you are afraid the nations youth might grow up to want to support the president.

Did Skolnik speak too bluntly? Maybe, and he got fired for it. Fact o the matter though is that what he said was true. The people who are gonna judge these grants based on their 'merits' are gonna think about if it would be offensive or pleasing to both the current administration and the populous that will be viewing it. that is human nature and true with all grant proposals. It is also not uncommon for the granter to provide guidelines and direction as to their personal thoughts and tastes prior to entry submissions.
 
The Bigfoot  - posted
From the Center of Biological Diversity so you know what I am referring to regarding Julie MacDonald and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. (Side note...this is different than what I was referring to with the EPA earlier. EPA and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are two departments both horribly misused by appointed administrators to weaken the departments they supposedly were in charge of.)

quote:
The manipulation of science for the benefit of private interests reached new heights at the Fish and Wildlife Service under the Bush administration. By suppressing, twisting, and ignoring information from its own biologists, the administration illegally removed or withheld Endangered Species Act protections for numerous species. In many cases, government and university scientists carefully documented the unauthorized editing of scientific documents, the overruling of scientific experts, and the falsification of economic analyses. Many of the illegal decisions were engineered by MacDonald.

The Center kicked off a Cleaning up the Bush Legacy Campaign in 2007, seeking to reinstate protections for 60 imperiled species and more than 8 million acres of habitat wrongly denied federal protection because of political interference. The campaign has already met with significant success: in response to Center lawsuits, the Fish and Wildlife Service has agreed to redo critical habitat designations for 19 species and reconsidered listing the rare, highly imperiled Mexican garter snake as an endangered.

Unsustainable water diversions from the Delta have caused the collapse of many fish runs in the Delta and Central Valley. Since 2002, delta smelt, longfin smelt, threadfin shad, Sacramento splittail, and striped bass have declined catastrophically and the state's largest salmon run of Central Valley fall-run chinook is suffering from record decline, forcing cancellation of commercial and recreational salmon fishing in California for the second straight year. White and green sturgeon numbers in San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento River have also fallen to alarmingly low levels. The southern green sturgeon population was federally listed as threatened in 2006.

Because federal and state agencies have so mismanaged the Bay-Delta, California’s largest and most important estuary, courts and federal agencies have begun to order changes in water export operations to protect fish populations. In 2007, an Alameda County court ruled that the California Department of Water Resources had been illegally pumping water out of the Delta without a permit to kill delta smelt and other fish species listed under the California Endangered Species Act. A federal court also rejected a federal “biological opinion” allowing high water exports and ordered reduced Delta pumping. In 2008, a federal judge invalidated a water plan that would have allowed more pumping from the Delta at the expense of protected salmon and steelhead trout. Earlier this year the National Marine Fisheries Service determined that pumping operations of the Central Valley Project jeopardize the long-term survival of winter and spring-run Chinook salmon, green sturgeon, Central Valley steelhead, and orcas that feed on the salmon, and mandated a 5-7% reduction in Delta water exports to save salmon.


 
glassman  - posted
A Young Bush Appointee Resigns His Post at NASA

By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: February 8, 2006

George C. Deutsch, the young presidential appointee at NASA who told public affairs workers to limit reporters' access to a top climate scientist and told a Web designer to add the word "theory" at every mention of the Big Bang, resigned yesterday, agency officials said.

Mr. Deutsch, 24, was offered a job as a writer and editor in NASA's public affairs office in Washington last year after working on President Bush's re-election campaign and inaugural committee, according to his résumé. No one has disputed those parts of the document.

According to his résumé, Mr. Deutsch received a "Bachelor of Arts in journalism, Class of 2003."

Yesterday, officials at Texas A&M said that was not the case.

Mr. Deutsch's resignation came on the same day that officials at Texas A&M University confirmed that he did not graduate from there, as his résumé on file at the agency asserted.

The resignation came as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was preparing to review its policies for communicating science to the public. The review was ordered Friday by Michael D. Griffin, the NASA administrator, after a week in which many agency scientists and midlevel public affairs officials described to The New York Times instances in which they said political pressure was applied to limit or flavor discussions of topics uncomfortable to the Bush administration, particularly global warming.


http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/08/politics/08nasa.html
 
glassman  - posted
how soon people forget, here's a few more:

1. Lewis “Scooter” Libby- no explanation needed


2. David Safavian- Administrator for Federal Procurement Policy, Office of Management and Budget, Executive Office of the President
As reported by the Washington Post:

* He resigned and was arrested the same day on charges resulting from the Jack Abramoff corruption investigation.
* He concealed his efforts to help Abramoff acquire control of two federally managed properties in the Washington area.
* He also made repeated false statements to government officials and investigators about a golf trip with Abramoff to Scotland in 2002.
* Mr. Safavian was convicted of lying and obstruction of justice and was sentenced to 18 months in prison.


3. Steven Griles- Deputy Secretary, Department of Interior
As reported by the Washington Post:

* Mr. Griles is the highest ranking administration member to be convicted as a resulted of the Jack Abramoff corruption probe.
* Pleaded guilty to lying to the Senate about his relationship with Abramoff and was sentenced to 10 months in prison and a $30,000 fine.


4. Kyle “Dusty” Foggo- CIA Executive Director
As reported by the Washington Post, MSNBC, & San Diego Union-Tribune:

* Mr. Foggo resigned while he was being investigated for using his seniority and influence at his prior CIA job in Europe to steer business deals to his longtime friend Brent R. Wilkes, a California businessman and top Republican fundraiser.
* He was charged with fraud, conspiracy and money laundering and pled guilty and admitted he used his position to steer millions of dollars in lucrative government contracts toward the company of his best friend

sentenced to 37 months in the federal prison at Pine Knot, Kentucky.


5. Eric Keroack- Dept. of Health & Human Services, Chief of U.S. Office of Population Affairs
As reported by the International Herald Tribune, The Boston Globe and The Washington Post

* Oversaw the population affairs office which is responsible for providing women with access to contraceptives and counseling to prevent pregnancy and has a $283 million annual budget.
* Served for more than a decade as medical director for A Woman’s Concern, a Massachusetts nonprofit group that discourages abortion and does not distribute information promoting birth control.
* Massachusetts’ Office of Medicaid has taken actions against his private medical practice within the state ordering him to refrain from prescribing drugs to people who are not his patients and from providing mental health counseling without proper training.
* He resigned only five months after he was appointed.


6. Randall Tobias- Deputy Secretary of State
As reported by the San Francisco Chronicle:

* Mr. Tobias was the director of U.S. foreign assistance and U.S. Agency for International Development administrator and previously had been the White House coordinator for global AIDS relief.
* His name surfaced in connection with the so-called D.C. Madam investigation involving Deborah Jeane Palfrey, who is accused of running an illegal escort service in the nation’s capital.
* He abruptly resigned and stated that he had used the service to provide massages, not sex.


7. Kyle Sampson- Attorney General Chief of Staff
As reported by the Washington Post:

* Kyle Sampson, proposed selective removal of US attorneys based on performance reviews pegged to how closely the prosecutors adhered to administration policy.
* Mr. Sampson strongly urged bypassing Congress in naming replacements, using a little-known power slipped into the renewal of the USA Patriot Act in March 2006 that allows the attorney general to name interim replacements without Senate confirmation.
* He acknowledged that he did not tell key Justice officials about the extent of his communications with the White House, leading them to provide incomplete information to Congress.
* He resigned after his memos outlining a political strategy for the dismissals were disclosed.


8: Monica Goodling- Senior Counselor to the Attorney General & Justice Department liaison to the White House
As reported by the Washington Post:

* She refused to answer questions from Congress about the U.S. Attorney firings, invoking her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
* Mr. Sampson and Ms. Goodling worked closely together on the firings, particularly in the case of an Arkansas prosecutor removed to make way for a former aide to presidential adviser Karl Rove. Both participated in briefings for Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty and others prior to testimony before Congress that has since been shown to be inaccurate.


9:Michael Battle- Dept of Justice Director of the Executive Office for United States Attorneys
As reported by the NY Times & AP:

* Mr. Battle carried out the U.S. Attorney firings and had contradicted Attorney General Gonzales’ assertions that he had limited knowledge of the dismissals and that the firings were based on performance, according to Sen. Charles Schumer


10: Sara Taylor- Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Political Affairs at the White House
As reported by the Washington Post & PBS:

* Sara Taylor resigned from her position as the White House Political Director during the height of the U.S. Attorney firings controversy in May 2007 and appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee after being subpoenaed on the matter.
* Most of her testimony was either claiming to not remember events and conversations or claiming to have to adhere to the President Bush’s claim of executive privilege.
* In a revealing moment that displayed her frame of mind about her duties, she claimed to have taken an oath to the president after which Senator Leahy corrected her by pointing out that she took an oath to uphold the Constitution and not the president.


11:Paul Wolfowitz- World Bank President
As reported by the CNN & the Washington Post:

* A World Bank committee concluded Mr. Wolfowitz violated staff rules when he arranged a raise and transfer for his girlfriend, Shaha Ali Riza, a longtime bank employee.
* After Mr. Wolfowitz took over at the bank in 2005, Riza was transferred to a U.S. State Department job at a tax-free government salary of almost $194,000 a year.
* Mr. Wolfowitz said an ethics panel approved the deal, but the panel denies it. An investigative committee found that the deal was a conflict of interest.
* He resigned only after the bank board accepted his contention that he acted “ethically and in good faith.”
 
glassman  - posted
oh yeah Rummy and Brownie too [Wink]

* Mr. Brown’s handling of the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe can be at best described as anemic and at worst as criminally negligent. His inaction and bungled actions as FEMA Director turned a huge natural disaster into a national catastrophe highlighted by bureaucratic ineptitude which led to his resignation shortly thereafter.
* He was appointed as FEMA director despite not have any significant experience in emergency management.
* He lied several times on his resume and official biography claiming to have served as an assistant city manager with emergency services oversight for Edmond, OK when in fact he was an administrative assistant with no managerial duties or authority. He was a student at Central State University at the time.
* He claimed to have been a Political Science professor at University of Central Oklahoma but the university states that Mr. Brown was never a faculty member and was only a student.
* He claimed to have been a director of the Oklahoma Christian Home, a nursing home in Edmond yet no one in that organization has ever heard of him before.
 
glassman  - posted
Lester Mills Crawford- Commissioner, US Food and Drug Administration

As reported by The Washington Times and MSNBC:

* On October 16, 2006, the US Justice Department formally charged Crawford with lying and violating conflict-of-interest laws for falsely reporting his ownership of stock in companies regulated by the FDA.
* Dr. Crawford resigned from the FDA in September, 2005, two months after his approval by the United States Senate. On October 17, 2006, he pleaded guilty to conflict of interest and false reporting of information about stocks he owned in food, beverage and medical device companies he was in charge of regulating. He was sentenced to three years’ supervised probation and fines of roughly $90,000.
* Crawford admitted to falsely reporting that he had sold or did not own stock when he continued holding shares in the firms governed by rules of the Food and Drug Administration. Beginning in 2002, Crawford filed seven incorrect financial reports with a government ethics office and Congress, leading to the charges.
 
glassman  - posted
there's so many that i just cannot put them all up...

i have no doubt Obama will have a few more, but it will take some doing to top Dubya's falied appointee's list. (and these are just the one that got caught)
 
glassman  - posted
man, cannot overlook these, not one has been "uncovered" by Fox Friends either:

Brian Doyle- Deputy Press Secretary, Department of Homeland Security
As reported by CNN and WJZ-TV Baltimore:

* Doyle was arrested on April 4th, 2006 and pleaded no contest on September 19, 2006 to seven counts of use of a computer to seduce a child and sixteen counts of transmitting harmful material to a minor.
* Doyle is alleged to have had sexually explicit conversations with an undercover police officer posing as a 14-year-old girl online. He is also alleged to have sent pornographic movie clips to the “girl.
* On November 17th, 2006 Brian Doyle was sentenced to five years in state prison.


Felipe Sixto- Special Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs
As reported by the Washington Post and MSNBC:

* Felipe Sixto resigned from his job as special assistant to President Bush for intergovernmental affairs after learning that his former employer, the Center for a Free Cuba, was prepared to begin legal action against him.
* Felipe Sixto pled guilty to stealing nearly $600,000 from a government-funded center that promotes democracy in Cuba. His sentencing is scheduled for March 2009.

Howard Krongard- Inspector General, State Department
As reported by the McClatchy News Service:

* Howard Krongard was forced to resign for allegedly impeding ongoing criminal investigations into the construction of a new, $740 million U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and security firm Blackwater Worldwide. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, through aides, asked him to leave.
* Krongard came under fire from his own investigators and from a congressional panel for allegedly blocking probes into serious claims of wrongdoing in Iraq. Those allegations include contract fraud and shoddy workmanship in the troubled Baghdad embassy and arms smuggling by North Carolina-based Blackwater.
* In July 2007, Krongard ordered aides to halt work on an investigation of Blackwater arms smuggling to Iraq and demanded a meeting with Justice Department prosecutors. At that meeting, he disparaged the probe and ordered a close personal aide to keep tabs on it.
* Krongard initially vowed to fight the accusations against him. But his position collapsed at a House of Representatives hearing last month when he was asked whether his brother, former top CIA official Alvin “Buzzy” Krongard, had accepted a position on a Blackwater advisory board. Krongard first denounced what he said were “ugly rumors,” then, after telephoning his brother, reversed himself.
 
T e x  - posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Bigfoot:
I think Obama sees Healthcare as more important than market reform Tex. I dunno, both are important.

I do agree that the longer it takes to get Healthcare reform passed the momentum behind strong market reform will fade. Hopefully market reform will be agenda #2 after he gets healthcare reform passed this year and then Education will be for year 3.

ya, apparently...

But it's wrong-headed. Nothing is more critical, more crucial. I'm sure his advisors warned of the danger of taking on the finance boys first rattle outta the box. But right when he took office was the time to bring an expose to the American people and bury the Senate in a groundswell of popular opinion. If the market were regulated in anything approaching a sane manner, we could afford whatever we want for health care. And as you say, getting bogged down in the health-care debate is causing us to lose momentum for financial reform.

But, that's what we get with a rookie. Maybe, somehow he can get a second term--with enough OJT perhaps he can come figure out how to get things done.
 
The Bigfoot  - posted
Wonder what your reaction will be to the new Michael Moore film Tex.
 
T e x  - posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Bigfoot:
Wonder what your reaction will be to the new Michael Moore film Tex.

Gawd...really? I've never seen a Moore film.

From what I've read, it seems as though he skims issues in order to generate topics.

Have you seen the new one?

Given that it's about capitalism, does it mention the DTCC?
 
The Bigfoot  - posted
It'll be coming out Friday Tex. Perhaps we should pick a day to go see it and then discuss...
 
T e x  - posted
On the health-care thread, I posted an excerpt of an opinion piece about the movie:

quote:
It takes a full hour and a half before he stumbles upon the topic he should have started skewering from the moment his film began: Bear-Lehman-AIG-Merrill Lynch-Goldman Sachs et al, and all the short-seller raids and bank runs and trillions of dollars in MBS's, CDS's, CDO's and CLO's that this entails.

Moore fails to make any serious attempt to show how and why Wall Street failed so dismally at managing risk. Instead we get silly stunts akin to what he was doing 20 years ago, in his far superior debut, "Roger & Me."

If that's true, I doubt I'm interested--it's simply not the movie I would care to sit through nor the movie that should have been made.
 



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