CNN Breaking: Tom Ridge to Resign Today

No surprise to most of us here, but now it's official.

CNN reports that Ridge will give a press conference announcing his resignation at 2:45 pm et today. They also report that he had an emotional meeting with his staff this morning.

Will update with link when it emerges.

ON EDIT: LINK:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22152-2004Nov30.html

Thanks to LionInWinter for the link!

I couldn't stand him as governor of my state and he was an even bigger tool as the homeland security guy. Good riddance!

a corportation...

Just like Ashcroft says, dontcha know? Ridge did such a wonderful job that it's time to leave us all safe and secure in **'s hands.

the orange and yellow are down to nubs now.

I just hope they don't start working on the red ones next!

How dare they do that to my favorite color!! :hi:

Ahh, the former Drug Czar.

Was it Asa, or Tim Hutchinson, who left his wife for a young staffer? One of them is a Bob Jones grad too, as memory serves.

the one who went after Clinton because he was so immoral!

Apparently, Tim Hutchinson was the one who left his wife for a young staffer.

Tim Hutchinson is also a Southern Baptist minister, who of course voted to impeach Clinton. Asa Hutchinson was one of the House Impeachment Managers.

Hey, whacked-out right wingers never let their own "family values" get in the way, did they? :eyes:

funding terrorists will be the main DHS thrust.
Look out DEA, there's a new nazi on the block!

And Porn too, don't forget porn!

Mitt Romney, and I missed one?? :shrug:

Mitt Romney, sheesh!!!!

:shrug:

from the gov position up here - but HS? I don't quite figure how he would qualify for that position. Does anyone know what the process is if he does take the position? Like who replaces him?

n/t

Where he goes from here-
Most likely through the revolving door between
our White House and a multi national corporate office
with a BIG old salary...reward for a hoax well done.
Wonder what fascist they will replace him with?
Someone the dominionists approve of, no doubt.
bhn

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge will likely resign early next year after which he will probably take a plum job with a defense contractor or well-connected law firm, according to Newsweek magazine.

Some political observers believe Ridge will leave the administration of President George W. Bush (news - web sites) in the near future and Newsweek said his "most frequently" mentioned replacement is Fran Townsend, a Homeland Security coordinator at the White House.

~snip~

"The rumor mill says private-sector billets for Ridge could include top jobs with a big defense contractor or a politically connected Philadelphia law firm that works on homeland security," it said.


Other potential top contenders for Ridge's post include former New York city police commissioner Bernard Kerik and the Department of Homeland Security's border chief Asa Hutchinson.

more: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20041121/pl_afp/us_politics_cabinet_041121220120

They just play musical chairs, don't they?
And all of his potential replacements are Jerry Falwell/Pat Robertson
fascist x-tians.
We are going to see some really strange things happen
in this country.
bhn

I try NOT to allow my imagination be too free on that.

and how he wouldn't be able to send his kids to college on the measly several-hundred thousand dollar salary he got as head of Homeland Security.

What are the rest of us supposed to do, tommy?

I hate to judge people by their appearance, but this guy just plain **looks** like a jack boot nazi. He talks like one, too. I think if he ever smiled his face would fall off.

He reminds me of that other moron, Bo Deedle, the security consultant who sounds and dresses like a bad mafioso wannabe. He's on Imus quite a bit.

These are two ex-NYPD clowns we could do without.

He is one.

Gods preserve our civil liberties if that bastard is put in charge of DHS.

Bernard B. Kerik (born circa 1956) was the Senior Policy Advisor to Iraq Interior Minister, appointed May 2003. He completed his assignment in this position in September 2003.

He was appointed the 40th Police Commissioner of the City of New York by Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani on August 21, 2000. He left office at the end of Giuliani's term in December 2001. From then until 2003, he was employed by a consulting firm formed by ex-Mayor Giuliani, Giuliani Partners. As the leader of the largest municipal police department in the United States, Commissioner Kerik oversaw a uniformed force of more than 41,000 officers, a civilian force of more than 14,500 which included the 3,500 member School Safety Division and 2,000 member Traffic Control Division, and an annual budget of more than $3.2 billion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Kerik

AFTER THE WAR

Baghdad City Cop
We beat crime in New York. We can do it in Baghdad.

BY BERNARD B. KERIK
Sunday, September 28, 2003 12:01 a.m. EDT

"Welcome to a free Iraq" is what Jerry Bremer, administrator for the Coalition Provisional Authority, said to me as he reached out to shake my hand when I arrived in Baghdad four months ago. I'm still moved by those words as I say them myself, "Welcome to a free Iraq," just as I was moved last week by President Bush--under pressure at home and abroad--standing firmly by our nation-building project in his U.N. speech.

As I toured Baghdad for the first time, I saw a city ravaged by war, looting and lawlessness. Or so I thought. What I didn't know then, and didn't learn until later, was that most of the damage to the infrastructure was caused by three decades of rule by a tyrant, who used his country's natural wealth not to enhance its power plants and sewage and water systems, but to aggrandize himself. These systems will now have to be built or rebuilt over the next several years and can't be fixed with a Band-Aid.





In my four months in Iraq, spent living with, working with, and learning from Iraqi police, I've seen things that would sicken the worst of minds. In our hunt for the Fedayeen Saddam, Saddam Hussein's trained assassins, I watched video after video of interrogations of Iraqis whose lives ended with the detonation of a grenade that was tied to the neck or stuffed in the shirt pocket of the victim. I watched the living bodies disintegrate at the pull of the pin. And if that's not enough, there's a tape of Saddam sitting and watching one of his military generals being eaten alive by Dobermans because the general's loyalty was in question.

But Iraq is now a different country. The rebuilding of the infrastructure has begun and the streets are full of life, with bustling markets and shops. But reconstruction isn't just about bricks and mortar: Iraq's civic structures were in tatters, too, especially its Baathist police force, an organization that had, in any case, no credibility with the Iraqi people. My job was to assist in setting up this force again, with proper training, new values, a respect for human rights. The latter phrase--"human rights"--has been absent from Iraq's vocabulary for decades. Certainly, no one has heard it uttered, until now, within the four walls of a police station. The magnitude of our task can be measured from the fact that we had to teach cops that when you pull a man suspected of a crime into the station, you can't just hang him upside-down and beat him with an iron bar.

more: http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110004077

I wonder what fascistic cretin they have waiting in the wings to replace him?

Of course, the Moron in Chief will no doubt find someone just as bad to take the job...:-(

of the Falwell ilk.
We have BIG problems coming.
These are the very people who endorse
overturning Roe/Wade and enacting
the Constitution Reconstruction Act etc...
A Supreme court comprised of evangelicals.
Completely nuts.
BHN

with Rummy for Abu Graib?

Can't find the story, looks like it is mostly Rummy and Tenant.

But the timing of this is interesting.

U.S. Group to File Iraq War Crimes Case in Germany



Mon Nov 29, 2:28 PM ET Top Stories - Reuters



BERLIN (Reuters) - Lawyers acting for a U.S. advocacy group will Tuesday file war crimes charges in Germany against senior U.S. administration officials for their alleged role in torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq (news - web sites).



"German law in this area is leading the world," Peter Weiss, vice president of the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a human rights group, was quoted as saying in Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper's Tuesday edition.



Those to be named in the case to be filed at Germany's Federal Prosecutors Office include Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, former Central Intelligence Agency (news - web sites) chief George Tenet and eight other officials.


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=564&nci...

cuz he was griping about how he could barely afford to pay for his expenses....

Except for sending planes to hunt for missing Texas Democrats at the behest of Tom Delay, he didn't do anything. If a useless bureaucrat resigns in the forest, does he make any noise?

Was glad to get him out of Pennsylvania, glad to get him out of Washingdon. Except, what creature will replace him?

He was the only thing standing between us and certain death. (/sarcasm)

the scary part is who could possibly replace him...

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just don't come back to PA, please. Hey, Tommy, if you are so worried about money for your kids to go to school, why don't you point out they can earn money while serving their country in the armed forces? Hmmmmm? I mean, if they get sent to Iraq, no biggie, because as your soon-to-be-former boss sez, we won't be there very much longer, right?

to the school Santorum does and have the people of PA pick up the tab.

Another useless bureaucrat moves on to another book deal.

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What a total chimp s**king propagandist. Great job of yelling BOO! on command for 3 years...Red Alert, Orange Alert...what a bunch of grrrrrrr

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Why didn't these jerks resign before the election when it might have changed a few votes? Were they forced to hold off?

everybody is jumping the old ship, lol! can't wait to see what loser they will put in. hmmm...wonder if they will put in a democrat...

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I do not remember that many sitting cabinet members leaving in the second term...my history sucks big time! To many parties in the 70's..lol!

Caption underneath video reads: "Ridge did great deal in short time"

pfft.

don't let the door hit your ass on the way out

ps please take george with you

Every time another rat jumps ship I get freaked out thinking what whacked out fascist fundie they're going to replace them with. :scared:

As I said on another thread, if Goss and Gonzales
are any indication of the new crew, we are so screwed.
bhn

Hard to think of anybody in any administration in American history who spent more bucks and accomplished less.

Really, except for a comic color chart and a national joke about duct tape, what DID Ridge do? The ports, nuclear plants, rail stations, bus stations, waste haulers and disposers, and chemical plants are no safer today than they were before 9/11, and what changes there were in airport security had nothing to do with him. The first responders are in worse shape today than they were before he started drawing his salary.

He fattened his personal portfolio by handing out contracts to companies he owned stock in. He handed a couple million dollars to the boob who turned out the GOP propaganda film, "Stolen Honor" and seems unconcerned that the work that guy was supposed to deliver is more than 11 months late.

to send his two children through college on his mere hundred thousand something salary. :( Don't tell me his little tykes both qualify for Ivy League Universities. :P Even so, he must be used to some extravagant standard of living.

Oh pobrecito Tom! We understand that you must quit so you can make big bucks that are required to maintain your "ruling class" status.

:cry:

oh I'm gonna miss him.

:eyes:

put Halliburton in charge of Homeland Security?

Doesn't that make 7 out of 13 cabinet members? Holy cow, when the hell did that happen? Nixon didn't even put up with that. When a guy leaves a position you CREATED FOR HIM that says a lot. Have fun cowboy, riding off into the sunset and all. Pennsylvania's a red state now, ho bag.

However, I can only begin to imagine who he'll replace him with :scared:

If you compare similar regimes, ridge was actually mild to the type of person fascist regimes usually put in positions like this. They could easily get someone now that will take people away in to the night...

Dude doesn't go light on the rouge, does he?