Hatch tried to kill this story - so let's spread it ALL OVER THE WEB!!!

It's the ugly story about laundering OUR tax dollars into Republican campaign contributions. I believe Hatch killed the first story on Cannonfire - odd how the thing disappeared after I emailed him a link. Especially since I've seen news stories mysteriously disappear before after I emailed him links. So since Hatch thinks it's damaging to his crooked 'puke pals, must be prime for us to spread all over the internet! Please help me spike Hatch's guns by forwarding this story to everywhere you can!

"Cunningham Stripped $700 Million from U.S. Defense

'Dukester's' Epic Boo-Hoo Hiding Massive Pentagon Rip-Off

*World Exclusive*
Nov 30 2005--Venice,FL.
by Daniel Hopsicker

The MadCowMorningNews has learned that California Republican Congressman Randy ‘Duke’ Cunningham steered $500 million in defense contracts in less than a decade, according to the company’s own website, to a start-up San Diego software firm which—and here’s the beauty part—doubled as a lobbying firm.

The lobbying firm then gratefully kicked back—at a bare minimum—hundreds of thousands of dollars annually to a Jack Abramoff-directed Washington D.C. lobbying and consulting firm run by two former senior staffers of Texas Republican Tom DeLay.

It offered, in other words, one-stop shopping.

While the focus was on the $2 million in bribes paid to Cunningham after his guilty plea, the question of just what the Congressman had done for all that long green received scant media attention."

http://www.madcowprod.com/index.html

Edit to add this link: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2292939

"Famous last words"

If all this coes come together in indictments, I'll have to make a flow chart just to follow the connections!

I printed the damn story too, just in case it dissappears!

he couldn't believe it but was hoping it could be proved and there is a lot of proof and photos of the supposed headquarters on Cannonfire, Kos and comments sections:

Cannonfire:==Note: If you came here by way of LiePar Destin's excellent piece in Kos, you may want to read "Wilkes: The Invisible Empire" first. Also, I'm happy to report that this blockbuster piece on Wilkes in the San Diego Union Tribune strengthens the thesis presented here.)

===From 1996 until this year, for example, Wilkes is listed as personally contributing $40,000 to a variety of congressional campaigns, including those of San Diego­area Republican congressmen Ron Packard, Brian Bilbray, and Randy "Duke" Cunningham; Democratic senator Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii; and Democratic Virginia senator Charles Robb. During the same period, Wilkes also gave $10,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee and $5000 to a political action committee run by ADCS.

===How profitable are the defense contracts when $2.5M can be given to Duke and an estimated $10M bat mitsvah for the daughter of a defense contractor who provided inadequate body armor to our troops.

http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002118.htm#comments
==Corp Watch - UN Global Compact
Corp Watch articles on Brent Wilkes Continuing with my sideline research on Deloitte Touche

==opensecrets, Baghdad Burning, Bush Out, Simply Appalling all down along with Cannonfire

==Contracting probe could extend to CIA

http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=32916&dcn=todaysnews

CIA executive director Kyle "Dusty" Foggo--whose career duties have encompassed letting CIA contracts--has had a long, close personal relationship with two contractors identified (==Brad, I share your concern about the scope of this. Yet when you look at corporations disassembling the right to vote, corporations manipulating energy markets to oust an elected governor in California, corporations having carte blance to bilk the government on relief operations - why should this surprise us?

I think that this is a little like the tape on the door at the Watergate that the security guard found - looks like nothing too big in itself, but o what it lead to. The main problem is that these people appear to be very adept at covering their tracks. But follow the money, and it should reveal a much broader map.

==Nearly four years ago Donald Rumsfeld said ""According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions,"

Another quote:
"How do we know we need $48 billion since we don't know what we're spending and what we're buying?"
Retired Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan

===Agreed. In reference to Halliburton I have a hypothesis that they are the ones receiving money that was to go for Katrina rebuilding efforts.

The oil rigs, which are in their family, took major hits. There has not been a lot of detail in the Presstitute media, but it would take billions to heal up the damage.

Obviously, from the exhorbitant profits reported by the oil barons, they are not spending their own money on repairs to the hundreds of offshore rigs that were damaged or destroyed by Katrina. Not to mention oil pipelines that were hosed.

So where is the money coming from? Taxpayer dollars that are being routed so the oil barons who run this government can gorge themselves further.

Meanwhile the great American City, New Orleans, suffers and dies.

"Good morning America, How are ya? Doncha know me? ... I'm your native son; I'm the train they call The City of New Orleans ..." (Arlo Guthrie).

There is so much corruption I can't keep track of it anymore. Neither can the presstitutes it seems.

===And a LOT of news since Franken's book release (August): Murder of a guy who had casino financial dealings with Abramoff. Charges against the White House's procurement officer who had close Abramoff ties.

In the January 2003 issue of Esquire, John J. DiIulio Jr., the former head of Bush's faith-based policy office, told Suskind, "There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus. . . . What you've got is everything -- and I mean everything -- being run by the political arm. It's the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis."

==hope Ney and Hastert go down

==DoJ 'Signals' GOP Corruption Probe Could Be Huge, Says NY Times I found this on Brad Blog. This is excellent! They're saying it could be one of the biggest corruption scandals in history!

http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002054.htm#comments

==Then there is the grand jury investigation into Abramoff's dealings with Indian gaming casinos. Money taken from Indian tribes as payment for lobbying efforts was apparently funneled to a myriad of right-wing organizations including Grover Norquist's foundation, Americans for Tax Reform, and Ralph Reed's political consulting firm in Georgia

===DeLay and Safavian have both been indicted and Ney remains under investigation, as does Karl Rove, albeit for an unrelated potential crime. Another indicted GOP player is Tom Noe who bilked the Ohio State Workers Compensation fund out of millions and then allegedly funneled some of that money into the Bush/Cheney coffers.

Noe's wife got in on the action as well, serving as Bush/Cheney campaign chairman while sitting on the election board of Lucas County during the fraud laden 2004 election.

===Visit Mollie Bradley-Martin's website at http://www.liberalgirlnextdoor.blogspot.com.

===Blogspot.com is now happening again, Bush Out and all the others including Cannon Fire are now available.

HOMELAND SECURITY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I feel soooo much safer now...

There is so much information on the corrruptions and lies of the Bush regime- I keep wondering; What is it going to take? I hope people will get this, and comprehend how these people CARE about nothing, except their power and profits.

The first time he did it to me, I wasn't sure it was him. But then I sent him some constitutent feedback on this story in a hopeless attempt to get him to do his job, and lo and behold yet another story gets killed.

Seems my Senator LIKES criminal activities!

from LiaparDestin at Kos

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/12/3/204731/868

I just love people who connect the dots
for us. :-)

How did he do that?

...disappear from the press afterward. Can I prove anything? No. But it sure is a strange coincidence, don't you think?

:tinfoilhat:

Do they know about this at KOS?

:shrug:

Bradblog was talking yesterday morning about how Cannonfire had disappeared along with all of blogspot but then it came back on and I read part of it there. Either Kos or Cannonfire did have a very good chart which I saved but don't know how to put in messageboard.

All My Sons - Clifford Odets play about war profiteers in WWII - in the film Edward G. Robinson played the corrupt father who lost one son who volunteered and died in one of the Robinson's characters defective planes and the other son walks out on Robinson with a wonderful speech when his father said he wouldn't have done it if he had known his own son would die, and his younger son says "They were all your sons."

this story too. He thanked Cannonfire on Bradblog comments yesterday.

"Katherine Harris can't understand why she got so many mysterious donations from defense contractor MZM, Inc., but now that the company has become toxic in the wake of the demise of her good friend Duke Cunningham, she's decided to unload them:

U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris has changed her mind and is now ready to dump more than $51,000 in campaign donations that are tied to the growing scandal around former U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham.

=Michael Scanlon= http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/=Abramoff

==This is a big story that begs for more attention. ADCS and MZM are probably just the tip of the iceberg. Who else gave to Cunningham, Hunter, Doolittle, and others linked to all of this? I'll bet my paycheck there's a lot more of these quasi-companies out there sucking up billions of dollars."

"Kudos to Joseph Cannon and all you folks involved in the research!

John Dean"

since Minnesota's AG is Mike Hatch...

I tried and failed to find a web link, but last night on NPR I heard a report on the GAO's (?) finding that 20 BILLION DOLLARS are missing or 'unaccounted for', under the general ledger of "Iraq Reconstruction Funds". Last I'd heard it was 8.8 ("missing"?), so I guess no one's put a brake on what's probably been happening since the outbreak of the fighting.

NPR's report talked about 'stacks and stacks of brand new hundred dollar bills, bundled in clear plastic, loaded on pallets, being air-lifted by helicopter'. Smaller sums have been turning up in soldier's duffel bags, the odd couple of hundred thousand here and there. The privatized rebuilding contracts that have been parcelled out through the Good Old Boy network have sometimes delivered woefully underwhelming results... facilities have been built, NPR said, that don't come close to what was supposed to have been delivered.

For instance, take the case of David H Brooks, CEO of DHB Industries, the company that makes those 'good' armored vests that were such a hot button issue in the 2004 campaign. Brooks has managed to suck up close to 200 million in salary, bonuses, and (it's being investigated) shady stock dumping.

From the CommonDreams article last week,

"... The New York Daily News estimates that the bat mitzvah Brooks threw for his daughter over the weekend cost an estimated $10 million. Virtually every musician that you might guess would appeal to a 50-something Long Island CEO was flown in by private jet: Aerosmith, Tom Petty, the Eagles' Don Henley and Joe Walsh, who performed with Fleetwood Mac's Stevie Nicks, Kenny G. As a likely concession to his daughter's tastes, Brooks also booked 50 Cent, DJ AM (Nicole Richie's fiancée) and rap diva Ciara.

According to Daily News gossip columnist Lloyd Grove, Brooks was so pumped for Aerosmith that he changed his wardrobe for their performance from a “black-leather, metal-studded suit -- accessorized with biker-chic necklace chains and diamonds from Chrome Hearts jewelers -- into a hot-pink suede version of the same lovely outfit.” The CEO then reportedly mounted the stage, clowned with Steven Tyler and insisted that his teenage nephew be permitted to sit in on drums."

Brooks/Belshezaar's contribution to the War Effort -- the highly touted 'safer' flak vests -- are turning out to be nothing of the kind. But for generating the sort of highly lucrative income from them that he has, he will no doubt earn a Presidential Medal of Freedom, a pat on the back, and "a heckuva job" public accolades and plaudits from our C-I-C.

...Or maybe if stories like his start making the rounds in print and on broadcast news, he won't!

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1201-30.htm

...If these guys are dropping 10 MILLION on a 13 year old's coming of age party, and for semi-public stuff like the Iraqi Media Fake News "information campaign", what are they doing with their Really Big, less traceable, more focused and directed spending?

never forget...never let THEM forget.

Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) tried to quash this story? What do you mean? How? When? Where?

Shortly after I sent him constituent email with a link to a story detrimental to Republicans, the story disappeared. The first time was a story on ABC News. 2nd time was this one. Was he truly involved? I don't know, but it doesn't look good - so I put on my :tinfoilhat:.

In addition, I had previously contacted Senator Hatch's office regarding Social Security. I asked his aide "what are you going to do next, execute people?" (Meaning the poor and disabled.) And she replied "I'd press the button."

So, based on my prior experience, I'm not inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.