If you've not joined us since Friday morning: Scan down and you will see a mercifully brief squib on Wilkes' odd penchant for securities fraudsters, followed by an unmercifully massive piece on Wilkes and the CIA.
Laura Rozen has an important piece up on Archer Logistics, the Wilkes subsidiary which has apparently done business with the CIA. I have previously argued that Archer is probably a shell company; their website certainly does not inspire any trust. They try to look like Lockheed, but they do not offer any details about goods or services or departments or personnel or company history. And they inhabit a small second-story office in Virginia, the same office space ADCS calls home. Several times, I've called that number during business hours; no receptionist answered. (Try the experiment yourself.) Does that sound like a real firm to you?
Rozen's spadework -- in particular, her work on Joel G. Combs -- only strengthens the suspicion that Archer Logistics exists to secure contracts, not to provide goods or services.
UPDATE: The Left Coaster has been doing some remarkable work on this story. They bring in Republican congressman George E. Plescia, married to Melissa Dollaghan, mentioned on the Group W Advisors website back when it was up and going. (Damn -- that's one I should've caught myself.)
Melissa once wrote a letter to the San Diego Union Tribune in which she assailed Kerry supporters for daring to suggest that Republicans lacked morality. Amusingly, she wrote these words at the same time her company was bribing politicians in order to rob the taxpayers. "Hypocrisy" doesn't cover Melissa Dollaghan-Plescia. Perhaps we need a term like "Hyper-hypocrisy."
A commentator or two on Kos has tried to denounce interest in Wilkes/Cunnigham by casting aspersions against Daniel Hopsicker and myself. My response got lost in the cyber-ether, so I'll publish the gist of it here.
The facts on the ground are the important things. The person who says "Hey, look at this stuff!" is of no importance whatsoever.
Hopsicker (whom I admire) deserved citation because he came to similar conclusions first. But I worked independently (with the help of some wonderful readers and friends to this blog), and I tried to present the findings in such a way that anyone could double-check them. A lot of people have done so. So far -- despite the usual quibbles over details -- no-one has said "You're all wrong and here's why."
The best way to insure accuracy is to interest a number of researchers. "Many hands make light work" -- and also more credible work.
To my eyes, a tale of a do-little defense contractor who funnels money to partisan causes is a tale of taxpayer dollars morphing into Republican ad buys. If you have a differing interpretation of the situation, I am all attention.
Is this, as some have said, the biggest scandal ever? Corruption is not a sporting event and there is no need to establish a heirarchy. On the other hand, the Wilkes mystery may open eyes to the wider issue of military contractor fraud -- and that may be the scandal with the hoariest pedigree.
6 comments:
Isn't that the purpose of COINTELPRO - to control the damage and re-establish government legitimacy?
If it was once used by the government, what is to say they wouldn't do it again. Not only that but, misdirecting, discrediting, disrupting and neutralizing specific individuals and groups is what Rove is good at. Besides, look who taught him the ways of dark side, Nixon's chief political dirty tricks strategist Donald Segretti.
In the wake of the Cunningham indictment, is Wilkes (or Wade) under criminal investigation? Or will the powers shut down these inquiries now that Duke is out?
OMG! Me thinks you found the holy F@!#ing grail of corruption. The has ties to other scandels that go back years.
Are they that arrogant that they got sloppy? Or, are they so distracted by ongoing scandels and investigations that they are overwhelmed?
I think the bloggoshere has caught them by surprise. Like a puzzle, bits and pieces of information start to come together, forming a clearer picture. Before this, info would just be scattered. Now, information and damage control are very difficult to contain.
The more bloggers that post about this, the harder it will be to contain. This is important, because the MSM has already sold out (this country). Also, it is easier to silence one voice, than it is to control a mob.
Let's hope Mike Ruppert picks up on this story.
I thought you might be interested in this link. It says that the Joel Gaylen Combs, the president of Archer logistics is the son of Patricia [nee Wilkes] Combs the older sister of (you guessed it) Brent Wilkes.
http://www.warandpiece.com/
joe, this is all so exquisitely HOT!
so hot, that much will be done to discredit/dissolve it. so obviously, take care.
and all of us out here should do whatever we can to distribute it wherever and whenever we can. there has to be a bubble-up phenomenon at work for this to ultiimately make a difference.
meanwhile, i was especially struck by one very slight and subtle phrase you made at the end of your piece, joe.
"taxpayer dollars morphing into Republican ad buys"
this gets at an issue that i feel has gained virtually NO coverage, and that is the big WHY our politicians require such treasure chests for campaigning in the first place. and that is, the media hammerlock on political exposure.
this should, democratically, be a public service. yet, through media mogul lobbying, it has become an enormous industry that then feeds back on itself by perpetuating the ignorance of the citizenry and protecting its greedy interests.
[as a brief aside, everyone should be made aware of the fact that there is a bill moving through congress that would destroy cable networks' obliation to provide their public service - in exchange for their right to use OUR airwaves - through local public access channels. not many folks know about these, but they are utterly crucial in providing local public forums for city council meetings, local political candidates, debates, and other local issues. if you are not aware of your own local public access channel, you should make it a point to find it, participate, and make a difference in that way. these channels are there for us to use for whatever purpose we see fit, including making political statements. check it out. and in the process, know that very interestingly, one author of this dreadful bill is mr. campaign finance reform himself, none other than john mccain! ya gotta wonder what sort of ultimate payback he's hoping to gain from this.]
anyway, were these mainstream media ads not required for campaigning, and the campaign process instead required that the media provide equal exposure to all contenders, the picture would be very very different. marketing enterprises would lose influence in the process, hollywood would resume its rightful place in the realm of fantasy and entertainment, and politicians would have less incentive and motivation to succumb to bribes and compromises of integrity.
but then, of course, that will never happen until we can rid ourselves of the scum of lobbyists in the first place. dare we hope that the abramoff scandal will move us closer to that place?
dare we hope that we can recover our democracy through any of these exposures of flagrant corruption of power, because that is what this is, not merely corruption of the republicans, though their brazen proclamations of desire for absolute power certainly tilt the scales significantly.
thanks, joe, yet again for pushing this line of inquiry. surely someone with a more public and mainstream platform will pick it up. and soon!
"Hypocrisy" doesn't cover Melissa Dollaghan-Plescia. Perhaps we need a term like "Hyper-hypocrisy."
Or mega-whore.
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