http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/15/AR2008091502471.html?nav=hcmoduletmv
In Sarah Palin's view of Christianity, apparently, once you say you are saved, any sort of immoral behavior is JUST FINE with The Lord.
Running on a Lie
By Eugene Robinson
Tuesday, September 16, 2008; A21
What kind of person tells a self-aggrandizing lie, gets called on it, admits publicly that the truth is not at all what she originally claimed -- and then goes out and starts telling the original lie again without changing a word?
Sarah Palin is beginning to seem like quite an unusual woman, and I'm not talking about her love of guns and "snow machines," her faith, her family or any of the presumably non-elite attributes that we in the "elite media" are accused of savaging. Wrongly accused, I should add; reporters are doing nothing more sinister than trying to find out who she is, how she thinks and what she has done in office.
One deeply troubling thing we're learning about Palin is that, as far as she's concerned, unambiguous fact doesn't appear to rise even to the level of inconvenience.
I'm sorry, but to explain my point I have to make another visit -- my last, I hope -- to the never-built, $398 million "Bridge to Nowhere" that was to join the town of Ketchikan, Alaska, with its airport on the other side of the Tongass Narrows.
You'll recall that in her Republican convention speech, Palin burnished her budget-hawk credentials by claiming she had said "thanks but no thanks" to a congressional earmark that would have paid most of the cost. A quick check of the public record showed that Palin supported the bridge when she was running for governor, continued to support it once she took office and dropped her backing only after the project -- by then widely ridiculed as an example of pork-barrel spending -- was effectively dead on Capitol Hill.
In her interview with ABC's Charles Gibson, Palin 'fessed up. It was "not inappropriate" for a mayor or a governor to work with members of Congress to obtain federal money for infrastructure projects, she argued. "What I supported," she said, "was the link between a community and its airport."
Case closed. Except that on Saturday, days after the interview, Palin said this to a crowd in Nevada: "I told Congress thanks but no thanks to that Bridge to Nowhere -- that if our state wanted to build that bridge, we would build it ourselves."
That's not just a lie, but an acknowledged lie. What she actually told Congress was more like, "Gimme the money for the bridge" -- and then later, after the whole thing had become an embarrassment, she didn't object to using the money for other projects.
I'm not shocked to learn that politicians sometimes lie. To cite an example that comes immediately to mind, John McCain's campaign ads attacking Barack Obama have taken such liberties that even Karl Rove says he wonders if they've gone too far. But it's weird for a politician -- or anyone else, really -- to maintain that an assertion is true after admitting that it isn't true.
Maybe Palin cynically believes she can keep using the "no thanks" line and manage to stay one step ahead of the truth police. Maybe she calculates that audiences would rather believe her than their lying eyes. Or maybe she really believes her own fantasy-based version of events. Maybe the Legend of Sarah Palin has become, on some level, more real to her than actual history.
And quite a legend it's turning out to be. The Post reported Sunday that as mayor of tiny Wasilla, Palin pressured the town librarian to remove controversial books from the shelves, cut funds for the town museum but somehow found the money for a new deputy administrator slot and told city employees not to talk to reporters.
And the New York Times reported Sunday that as governor, Palin appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to a $95,000-a-year job as head of the State Division of Agriculture. Havemeister "cited her childhood love of cows as a qualification for running the roughly $2 million agency," the Times reported, noting her as one of at least five schoolmates to whom Palin has given high-paying jobs in state government.
Nothing against cows. Nothing against high-school BFFs and being true to your school. But a different picture of Sarah Palin is beginning to emerge. The McCain campaign would like us to see a straight-talking, gun-toting, moose-eviscerating, lipstick-wearing frontierswoman. Instead, we're beginning to discern an ambitious, opportunistic politician who makes no bones about rewarding friends and punishing those who stand in her way -- and who believes that truth is nothing more, and nothing less, than what she says it is.
The writer will answer questions at 1 p.m. today at http://www.washingtonpost.com. His e-mail address is eugenerobinson@washpost.com.
Read more from Eugene Robinson at washingtonpost.com's new opinion blog, PostPartisan.
Showing posts with label corruption. Show all posts
Showing posts with label corruption. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Monday, September 15, 2008
Let's Get This Straight!
I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight.....
* If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're "exotic & different."
* Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, a quintessential American story.
* If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
* Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.
* Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.
* Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well-grounded.
* If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as aConstitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 2 years in theUnited States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.
* If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.
* If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.
* If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your broken and disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.
* If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.
* If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.
* If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America's.
* If you're husband is nicknamed "First Dude", with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.
OK, much clearer now.
* If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're "exotic & different."
* Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, a quintessential American story.
* If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
* Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.
* Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.
* Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well-grounded.
* If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as aConstitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 2 years in theUnited States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.
* If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.
* If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.
* If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your broken and disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.
* If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.
* If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.
* If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America's.
* If you're husband is nicknamed "First Dude", with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.
OK, much clearer now.
Tawdry Tale of Oil Drillers and "MMS Chicks"
http://www.truthout.org/article/tawdry-tale-oil-drillers-and-mms-chicks
Tawdry Tale of Oil Drillers and "MMS Chicks"
Sunday 14 September 2008
»
by: Carl Hiaasen, The Miami Herald
(Photo: Thaimed.us)
People always say the Bush administration is in bed with the oil companies, but it turns out to be literally true.
According to the Interior Department, some government officials in charge of collecting oil and gas royalties smoked pot, snorted cocaine and had sex with employees of big energy firms.
Meanwhile, the rest of us were getting screwed at the gas pump.
Three reports delivered last week to Congress portray "a culture of ethical failure" in which employees of the federal Minerals Management Service often accepted gifts from oil and gas interests, steered lucrative contracts to cronies and partied hard with those with whom they did business on behalf of the U.S. taxpayer.
The MMS collects about $10 billion annually in royalties from energy companies that drill offshore and on federally owned lands. Beside the IRS, it's one of the biggest sources of government revenue.
During the Bush years, the agency has faced harsh criticism for failing to vigorously pursue millions of dollars in outstanding or potential royalties. One controversial program, called royalty-in-kind, allows energy companies to pay the government in gas and oil, instead of dollars.
According to the inspector general's report, the royalty-in-kind office of the MMS was rife with "substance abuse and promiscuity." Certain fun-loving employees were known as the "MMS Chicks" by energy firm employees, who would generously invite the women to lively social events.
Oil and gas companies named in the reports are Chevron, Hess, Shell Pipeline and Gary-Williams Energy. They paid for MMS workers to attend PGA golf tournaments, Major League Baseball and football games, ski trips, a Toby Keith concert, paintball-shooting events and "treasure hunts," whatever that means.
The inspector general found an e-mail from some dork at Shell Pipeline to a woman in the federal royalty office, asking her to join him at a tailgate party before a Houston Texans football game: "Have you and the girls meet at my place at 6 a.m. for bubble baths and final prep. Just kidding."
This stuff would be a whole lot funnier if the country's energy policy weren't a disaster and gas weren't $4 a gallon. The Republicans' renewed lust to open more offshore leases might not bring down the price of crude, but it would keep the good times rolling at the Interior Department.
Apparently the plan is to tailgate our way to energy independence.
Interestingly, while at least a dozen former and current MMS employees were named in the reports, the Bush Justice Department has chosen to go after only one, Jimmy W. Mayberry.
Last month he pleaded guilty to a felony conflict-of-interest charge for arranging a juicy consulting contract for himself, as sort of a retirement gift.
The woman who helped Mayberry hatch this scam was Lucy Q. Denett, then the associate director of minerals revenue management. She's also married to Paul Denett, who until recently was the top procurement honcho in the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Mrs. Denett has retired from Interior for personal reasons and won't be prosecuted. She told investigators she'd made a "very poor" decision by helping her pal Mayberry rig the consulting contract. No kidding.
Another Bush hack who likely will escape punishment in the scandal is Gregory W. Smith, former program director of the royalty-in-kind office. The inspector general said that Smith wrongly used his government position to market a private tech-services firm to gas and oil companies, and that the firm paid him $30,000.
Smith, now working for a Denver oil company, has refused to publicly discuss the allegations.
The report also accuses him of taking gifts from energy industry representatives, having sex with two of his subordinates and buying cocaine on several occasions from his secretary and her boyfriend.
Who says that being a bureaucrat is dull work?
Such colorful revelations shed some light on the mysterious energy task force assembled by Vice President Dick Cheney at the president's direction, shortly after he took office.
Cheney has stubbornly refused to tell American taxpayers what was decided or who participated in these important meetings, though it's known that many major players were involved, including those geniuses at Enron.
No wonder the vice president is so secretive about what took place. Obviously these weren't serious policy meetings; they were toga parties, with Cheney dressed up as Bluto from Animal House.
In their wildest dreams the boys from big oil couldn't have imagined how much fun the next eight years would be - sex, drugs and "treasure hunts."
Party on, dudes. Drill your brains out.
Tawdry Tale of Oil Drillers and "MMS Chicks"
Sunday 14 September 2008
»
by: Carl Hiaasen, The Miami Herald
(Photo: Thaimed.us)
People always say the Bush administration is in bed with the oil companies, but it turns out to be literally true.
According to the Interior Department, some government officials in charge of collecting oil and gas royalties smoked pot, snorted cocaine and had sex with employees of big energy firms.
Meanwhile, the rest of us were getting screwed at the gas pump.
Three reports delivered last week to Congress portray "a culture of ethical failure" in which employees of the federal Minerals Management Service often accepted gifts from oil and gas interests, steered lucrative contracts to cronies and partied hard with those with whom they did business on behalf of the U.S. taxpayer.
The MMS collects about $10 billion annually in royalties from energy companies that drill offshore and on federally owned lands. Beside the IRS, it's one of the biggest sources of government revenue.
During the Bush years, the agency has faced harsh criticism for failing to vigorously pursue millions of dollars in outstanding or potential royalties. One controversial program, called royalty-in-kind, allows energy companies to pay the government in gas and oil, instead of dollars.
According to the inspector general's report, the royalty-in-kind office of the MMS was rife with "substance abuse and promiscuity." Certain fun-loving employees were known as the "MMS Chicks" by energy firm employees, who would generously invite the women to lively social events.
Oil and gas companies named in the reports are Chevron, Hess, Shell Pipeline and Gary-Williams Energy. They paid for MMS workers to attend PGA golf tournaments, Major League Baseball and football games, ski trips, a Toby Keith concert, paintball-shooting events and "treasure hunts," whatever that means.
The inspector general found an e-mail from some dork at Shell Pipeline to a woman in the federal royalty office, asking her to join him at a tailgate party before a Houston Texans football game: "Have you and the girls meet at my place at 6 a.m. for bubble baths and final prep. Just kidding."
This stuff would be a whole lot funnier if the country's energy policy weren't a disaster and gas weren't $4 a gallon. The Republicans' renewed lust to open more offshore leases might not bring down the price of crude, but it would keep the good times rolling at the Interior Department.
Apparently the plan is to tailgate our way to energy independence.
Interestingly, while at least a dozen former and current MMS employees were named in the reports, the Bush Justice Department has chosen to go after only one, Jimmy W. Mayberry.
Last month he pleaded guilty to a felony conflict-of-interest charge for arranging a juicy consulting contract for himself, as sort of a retirement gift.
The woman who helped Mayberry hatch this scam was Lucy Q. Denett, then the associate director of minerals revenue management. She's also married to Paul Denett, who until recently was the top procurement honcho in the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Mrs. Denett has retired from Interior for personal reasons and won't be prosecuted. She told investigators she'd made a "very poor" decision by helping her pal Mayberry rig the consulting contract. No kidding.
Another Bush hack who likely will escape punishment in the scandal is Gregory W. Smith, former program director of the royalty-in-kind office. The inspector general said that Smith wrongly used his government position to market a private tech-services firm to gas and oil companies, and that the firm paid him $30,000.
Smith, now working for a Denver oil company, has refused to publicly discuss the allegations.
The report also accuses him of taking gifts from energy industry representatives, having sex with two of his subordinates and buying cocaine on several occasions from his secretary and her boyfriend.
Who says that being a bureaucrat is dull work?
Such colorful revelations shed some light on the mysterious energy task force assembled by Vice President Dick Cheney at the president's direction, shortly after he took office.
Cheney has stubbornly refused to tell American taxpayers what was decided or who participated in these important meetings, though it's known that many major players were involved, including those geniuses at Enron.
No wonder the vice president is so secretive about what took place. Obviously these weren't serious policy meetings; they were toga parties, with Cheney dressed up as Bluto from Animal House.
In their wildest dreams the boys from big oil couldn't have imagined how much fun the next eight years would be - sex, drugs and "treasure hunts."
Party on, dudes. Drill your brains out.
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