Why Elaine Chao, Wife of Mitch McConnell, Could Help Sink his Re-election Bid 2 / 3

by Nomad

In this installment - the second of three on Elaine Chao, wife of Mitch McConnell- we shall be examining her tenure as Labor Secretary during the Bush years, her philosophy and her performance.

To view Part One

The Confirmation Hiccup

Elaine Chao's 2001 confirmation hearings for the top post in the Department of Labor was a breeze by today's standards.
Or by any standards.

Here's how her biographer put it:

What qualified Chao to oversee 125 million workers, 10 million employers and the enforcement of 180 federal laws? The Senate’s confirmation committee never asked. It was enough that Chao had, as one senator put it, this ”compelling” and ”poignant” personal story. Even if no one knew what it was.

There was only one minor hiccup.

Secrecy and Disclosure: Cheney Offers Romney Free Advice

As vice-president, Dick Cheney's most effective tool was always stealth. Listen the unsolicited advice he has given candidate Mitt Romney about disclosure. Of course, the question is whether Cheney's advice can actually win elections or hide evidence?

I have recently come to the conclusion that the Republican Party is now living in a world where rewards and punishment, shame and honor, have been turned upside down and made completely irrelevant.

The very people that should be hanging their head in utter shame, that should be wear identity-hiding beards and dark glasses or living in total seclusion in a backwoods cabin in Montana are now held up as experts or authorities.

Republican failures are constantly being interviewed and asked their opinions. Why would any intelligent person care?

So when I read about former vice president Dick Cheney giving his “valuable” advice to the presumptive nominee for the Republican party, Mitt Romney, I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, the conservative media reveres people like Cheney and think, despite the historical record, their opinions are extremely important.

"Nobody Could Have Predicted it": Bush Administration's Shocking 911 Lie

                Condoleezza Rice

by Nomad
One of the more glaring discrepancies of the terrorist attacks on September 2001 has gone virtually unreported. Not only were authorities well aware that hijacked planes could be used by terrorists as weapons, the information had been widely available to the public since 1993.

During a May 16, 2002 press briefing, speaking about the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters:

"I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile. All of this reporting about hijacking was about traditional hijacking."

This defense was used repeatedly by the administration and few reporters never seemed to bother to question it.
According to one source,

White House spokesman Tony Fratto showed that Rice's talking point had legs. Spoon-fed last month by Fox News anchor Jon Scott's suggestion that "nobody was thinking that there’d be terrorists flying 767s into buildings at that point," Fratto reliably coughed up the laughably discredited sound bite:

"That’s true. I mean, no one could have anticipated that kind of attack - or very few people."

MEK and the Hypocrisy of the Anti-Terrorism War-Mongers

by Nomad

John Bolton

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh, writing for the New Yorker, has uncovered evidence that suggests that the United States military trained the People's Mujahedin of Iran or also known as the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) in the deserts of Nevada in 2005.

Bush Hypocrisy

The Hersh article, Our Men in Iran? is, by any definition, an eye-opener and reveals the full extent of Bush administration’s hypocrisy of its so-called war on terror. 
According to Hersh,  the Department of Energy’s Nevada National Security Site about 65 miles outside of Las Vegas, was used as a clandestine training base for a terrorist group.

It was here that the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) conducted training, beginning in 2005, for members of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, a dissident Iranian opposition group known in the West as the M.E.K.
The M.E.K. had its beginnings as a Marxist-Islamist student-led group and, in the nineteen-seventies, it was linked to the assassination of six American citizens. It was initially part of the broad-based revolution that led to the 1979 overthrow of the Shah of Iran. But, within a few years, the group was waging a bloody internal war with the ruling clerics, and, in 1997, it was listed as a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department. [emphasis mine]

Karl Rove and the Truth about the Hunt for Bin Laden 1/2

By Nomad

In a Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal op-ed article, former Bush strategy advisor Karl Rove recently wrote:   

As for the killing of Osama bin Laden, Mr. Obama did what virtually any commander in chief would have done in the same situation. ..For this to be portrayed as the epic achievement of the first term tells you how bare the White House cupboards are.

It is interesting that Rove would even dare to remind the American people how completely inept the Bush administration was. Interesting, but not particularly surprising. This is Karl Rove- a man who has never felt any great need to be honest to the American people.

The Amazing Story of Clarence Thomas' Confirmation Hearings 3/3

By Nomad

Part One
Part Two
In this the final part of the three part series, I will look at the stormy conclusion to the confirmation hearings. The Senate judiciary Committee, unable to reach a decision, passed the issue to the Senate for a vote. Unknown to most of the members, a storm was brewing and it would prove to be a public relations nightmare for the Bush Administration.

Allegations and Revelations

It was at this point- when the Senate took up the task of voting on the confirmation- that the process took an unexpected and ugly turn. A leaked Judiciary Committee/FBI report revealed that a colleague of Thomas, an Anita Hill, University of Oklahoma law school professor, had alleged that Thomas had made inappropriate remarks of a sexual nature while working together at the EEOC and the Department of Education. 

Seeing the handwriting on the wall, Danforth, as Thomas’ protector pulled out all stops in order to force a vote before the Senate was able to hear Professor Hill’s testimony.

Additionally the Senator threatened to refuse to support a civil rights bill presently under discussion if moderate Democrats opposed Thomas. According to sourcewatch

In his book, Danforth would later admitted displaying very un-diplomatic behavior when Thomas' nomination was challenged: "I completely lost my temper in a table-pounding, shouting, red-in-the-face profane rage." Danforth wrote that he saw his role defending Thomas as "a warrior doing battle for the Lord."

The entire question of Thomas’ qualifications suddenly took a back seat to the more sensational allegations of sexual misconduct in the office. The White House had worked hard to build up the image of Clarence Thomas as a man who had risen from abject poverty to an esteemed position of trust. It was a focus away from qualifications and competence to character and judgement. And suddenly, with the testimony of Anita Hill, they watched as all their hard work slip away as the young black woman began her testimony..

My name is Anita F. Hill, and I am a professor of law at the University of Oklahoma. I was born on a farm in Okmulgee County, OK, in 1956. I am the youngest of 13 children. I had my early education in Okmulgee County. My father, Albert Hill, is a farmer in that area. My mother's name is Erma Hill. She is also a farmer and a housewife. My childhood was one of a lot of hard work and not much money, but it was one of solid family affection as represented by my parents. I was reared in a religious atmosphere in the Baptist faith, and I have been a member of the Antioch Baptist Church, in Tulsa, OK, since 1983. It is a very warm part of my life at the present time.

She then describe the duties and responsibilities while she worked with Thomas. It was, however, the troubling allegations about his behavior that caused a stir.

After approximately 3 months of working there, he asked me to go out socially with him. What happened next and telling the world about it are the two most difficult things, experiences of my life. It is only after a great deal of agonizing consideration and a number of sleepless nights that I am able to talk of these unpleasant matters to anyone but my close friends.

Her allegations were specific and detailed. From a television producer’s point of view, exactly the kind of sensationalism that could turn a rather dry debate about judicial matters into a television news event.