The Siegelman scandal: Karl Rove denies asking Dana Jill Simpson to do anything.
And I frankly thought it was really unusual, you know, there was CBS – this woman says she met with me in 2001 – I’m at the White House, where did we meet? You know, she was an opposition researcher, ah, who paid her? When did I start making these requests? I mean, I, I, the woman lied. I don’t think I’ve ever met the woman. I know I’ve never taken a meeting with her.Unfortunately, if Rove did meet Simpson, the only people who could confirm her testimony would be Republicans.
And yet the CBS – look, I’m a myth I’m not a human being. I may appear to be flesh and blood but I’m a myth.
Left eye open; right eye blind. By the way, I urge you to read this fine piece by McCamy Taylor. As you know, Siegelman was convicted of "bribery" because he re-appointed a businessman to a state board after he had contributed to a lottery intended to help education. Taylor compares that "offense" to the strange dance between George W. Bush -- then the governor of Texas -- and Ben Barnes, the Texas Dem who once helped young Bush evade the draft.
Barnes himself -- quite late in the game -- admitted to Dan Rather that W had received "preferential treatment."
Guess what Ben got in return...? He was illegally hired by G-Tech, which ran the Texas state lottery. His lifetime contract gave him a percentage of the revenues. When people started asking too many questions about how W got into the National Guard, G-Tech bought out Barnes' contract -- for $23 million.
What Siegelman is accused of doing is nothing compared to the crimes of Governor George W. Bush, who allowed a firm to overcharge the state for its lottery work so that Ben Barnes would keep quiet about a secret that would jeopardize his political career and who, when the conspiracy was uncovered, participated in a cover up with the assistance of Harriet Miers.Was the congressman a spy? Rick Renzi, the disgraced and indicted House member from Arizona (and former member of the intel committee) has long been rumored to have a background in intelligence. The indicators include a fancy residence in Virginia, "missing" years in his resume, vague references to doing overseas work for the DOD, and a dad who is a Major General.
Reader starroute found this intriguing story from 2003:
Rick Renzi is a long-time spook with a top-secret clearance from the Pentagon who researched Libya for the Pentagon during the 1980s, and whose dad is a retired general and executive V.P. of ManTech International in Virginia which supplies information technology to the Pentagon and CIAThis statement appears on the Not In Our Name website. I've asked those folks if they could supply any sourcing for this data. So far, I've received no reply.
Libya? Fascinating. The Renzi case now brings to mind the Wilson/Terpil affair, which also revolved around Libya. Like Rick Renzi, Ed Wilson purchased impressive digs in Virginia -- indeed, his lavish lifestyle was one clue that he had gone "off the reservation."
Prozac doesn't work. A new study finds that a placebo is just as effective in curing depression.
Perhaps doc elsewhere will offer her expert commentary on this development. Personally, I've long felt chary of America's willingness to medicate the melancholy.
As the economy slides toward economic depression, lots of people will head into a psychological depression. Our nation's head-shrinkers will not easily admit their inability to deal with the phenomenon. Psychologists and psychiatrists mean well, but they also (usually) live well, and the affluent cannot easily comprehend the pressures felt by the suddenly impoverished. If you feel down because you are losing your house, talking about your parents won't alleviate the misery.
Apparently, Prozac won't help either.
10 comments:
I'm curious. If Texas uses electronic voting (I don't know), wouldn't it be in the best interest of Republican saboteurs to set those machines so that Clinton wins? I mean, nothing will get out the Republican vote quite like Hillary. And, assuming she got the nomination, if evidence comes out that "she" tampered with the machines, nothing will drive other voters into the arms of McCain or Nader. It's a win-win situation for Repug-blicans.
As for Prozac, they did show it works on severely depressed folks.
.R.S.E.
Significantly, Simpson told her story about Rove to Congressional investigators while she was under oath. It doesn't matter what Rove says if the objective is to overturn Siegelman's conviction.
I meant to say that it wouldn't take much else to drive other voters to the "Dark Side."
Sorry, not enough coffee yet this morning.
.R.S.E.
joe, first of all, blogger would not let me comment last night, so i hope this works now.
second, i should likely do a little piece on the pills; as rse points out, they do work on the severely depressed. the problem lies in our pharma companies' becoming pushers, and our sorry selves becoming addicts. but more later. or sooner...
and third, a little inside poop on the siegelman/60 minutes blackout.
went to high school in that neck of the woods, and my brother still lives in the area, so he 'witnessed' the blackout.
he also contacted a steve king at WHNT, their chief engineer. here's what steve had to say to my brother's query about 'what gives'?
"Simple, a CBS satellite receiver failed at WHNT causing us to loose about 5 minutes of the story ,we aired it again at 10pm last night and again At 6pm tonight and had it posted on the web last night and all day today."
So, given that the rules about station logs are on PAGE ONE of the FCC manual, it should be interesting if we have indication of such a 'receiver failure'.
i thought about emailing steve myself and asking him directly, but instead, i wrote to HJC chair conyers and shared all these data with him, hoping that they'll quickly dive into this leg of the story without alerting folks at the station to 'fix' the data.
marcy's take on karl's nervousness is priceless:
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/02/25/bullying-cbs-didnt-work-out-so-well-this-time-did-it-turdblossom/
you can sure see him squirming, calling CBS the 'national enquirer' of the news.
god, will THIS finally take down the turd? (no blossom in there at all, folks)
p.s.
it appears there's a developing story over at rawstory that MSNBC is calling for mukasey to investigate any 'meddling' by rove.
stay tuned....
Did you pick up that Renzi's father died earlier this month? I'm not sure where I saw it, but the story stated that Renzi's indictment came just one day after the funeral.
Perhaps looking into the father would prove more fruitful than trying to approach the matter through Renzi himself.
Well apparently Prozac was pretty good at making quite a few young adults under the age of 25 suicidal. Plus it made Big Pharma tons of dough. So it did do something.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prozac
CapnDudeGuy
I was horrified to wake up to the nasty, bias-ridden Internet reaction to the alarmist "Anti-depressants of 'little use'" headline today, particularly by those who have little or no understanding of depression (in its many forms) as an illness, as well as a clear predjudice against those seeking treatment for mental health problems. The bashing of the mentally ill and those getting treatment for mental health concerns, perhaps especially insults hurled at the clinically depressed, is inexcusable. It's even more disgusting when this bashing involves broad-sweeping and ignorant generalizations about the nature of depression and anxiety disorders or equally ignorant characterizations of the ways medication now supposedly "doesn't help" to resolve them.
I wonder how many people in need of treatment will delay or neglect to get it because of the way the BBC chose to "present" the findings of this study? I hope it isn't anywhere near as many as the number who've used it to justfiy their stupidity and narrow-mindedness.
geez I would love to see those emails that mysteriously went missing (Republican National Committee server emails). After all, they were allegedly "campaign" emails.
here's a site that may be helpful for connecting dots in the story line
http://www.scrushy-report.com/
k
I don't have time to go into the details of why right now, but that antidepressant study is garbage. If you are interested, I'll return to the topic later. Antidepressant medication is probably overused, but the introduction of Prozac, its SSRI cousins, and the various unique classes of antidepressants that have emerged since, marks a major advance in the treatment of major depression. I can tell you from decades of experience that date back to the latter days of electroconvulsive therapy that these drugs are tools I am grateful to have in my arsenal when treating patients who benefit from them.
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