Posts with the tag Blackwater

McCain Cleans Up Washington...with Bush Grads and Lobbyists

Democrat in San Ramon, CA — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 17:19:12 EDT

My question is simple: if John McCain is such a change agent, then how come all but one of the top people on his campaign staff are either former Bush employees or “on leave” lobbyists?

What follows are backgrounds for the leadership team for McCain’s campaign. The standard response from McCain and his Washington supporters regarding criticisms of his team has been to scream “How dare you” and claim how offensive the allegations are (a standard play from the Karl Rove playbook). Offended as they may be, there is no disputing the backgrounds of the following people. I encourage you to do your own research; while you may choose to interpret what you find however you would like, you will find the same facts that I have outlined below (minus my occasional cynical comments).

* Rick Davis â€" Campaign Manager: While the day to day strategy and operations for the McCain campaign has now been placed primarily with Steve Schmidt, Rick Davis is still in charge of the overall campaign. Rick Davis is one of McCain’s “On Leave” Lobbyists and still holds a stake in his firm, Davis Manafort. Furthermore, over the years Davis has arranged numerous meetings between McCain and his clients who seem to regularly have controversial bills pushed through by committees that McCain heads, including a controversial merger between SBC Communications Inc. and Comsat Corp., as well as the takeover of DHL by Deutsche Post which is now resulting in lost Ohio jobs.

* Steve Schmidt â€" Daily Campaign Manager: A number of articles have come out about Steve Schmidt has reinvigorated John McCain’s campaign with more hard hitting and nasty approach. This should not be surprising since Schmidt was is a protégé of Karl Rove and was a member of Karl Rove’s exclusive "breakfast club" that ran President Bush's re-election campaign in 2004. Schmidt was a top aide for Cheney and ran the rapid-response team for Bush-Cheney, a job once held by ex-White House counselor Dan Bartlett.

* Douglas Holtz-Eakin - Policy Director: He served for 18 months as chief economist in the President’s Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush (2001â€"02. In the simplest terms, Holtz-Eakin is a supporter of supply-side economics, believing that reduction of taxes on the wealthy and corporations will trickle-down to the rest of the economy, a continuation of the same economic policy driven by the current Bush administration.

* Charlie Black - Senior Adviser: Charlie Black is a former chief lobbyist for BKSH & Associates. Black’s clients included Blackwater (yes, the “security” contractor who has received over $300 million in Federal funds for the Iraqi war) and Ahmed Chalabi (leader the Iraqi National Congress, a group formed with the aid and direction of the United States government following the Gulf War, for the purpose of fomenting the overthrow of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein). When Senator McCain's relationship with telecom lobbyist Vicki Iseman was questioned in early 2008, Black "made the rounds of television networks to defend McCain ... even before McCain finished his news conference," reported the Washington Post. Black's lobbying clients at the time included General Motors, United Technologies, JPMorgan and AT&T.

* Nicolle Wallace - Senior Adviser: Nicolle Devenish Wallace is the former White House Communications Director. She was appointed to the senior position on January 5, 2005, the same day her predecessor, Dan Bartlett, vacated the post to become a more general Counselor to the President. Wallace also served as Communications Director for the 2004 Bush presidential campaign. Previously, she had held positions at the White House, under Florida governor Jeb Bush, and in the California Republican Party.

* Randall J Scheunemann - Foreign Policy Aide: Mr. Scheunemann has the distinction of being both a lobbyist and formal member of the Bush White House. He is the President of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which was created by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), of which he is a board member. He was an advisor to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Iraq. Scheunemann was also a registered foreign agent (lobbyist) for the Republic of Georgia.

* Jill Hazelbaker - Communications Director: Congratulations to Jill Hazelbaker… You are the only member of McCain’s senior team who is not a Bushite or a lobbyist!

On a related note, if the above is not enough, let’s not overlook that Sarah Palin’s speech at the Republican convention was written by none other than Matthew Scully, a veteran of the early Bush White House. He worked for President George W. Bush a total of five years, including 18 months in the 2000 campaign. Scully has also written for vice president Dick Cheney.

John McCain continues to state “change is coming.” I, for one, also believe change is coming but am increasingly worried John McCain will be elected, and I will be waiting for that change for another four years.

Republicans are Fiscally Irresponsible

Liz — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:30:42 EDT

One of the more popular slimy Republican tactics is their pitch for how clever they are with money. That is half true. They are very clever with their OWN money, that is true. However when it come to other people's money (OPM), they throw caution to the wind.

One of their favorite words is "Privitization". Translation: An arrangement where by a privately held company with its CEO and shareholders take all the profits and the American taxpayers shoulder the burden of the operations expenses and any losses that may be incurred from mismanagement of the privately held company by its CEO.

Privitization is an arrangement that has worked quite well for the rich under the Bush Administration.

Until privitization is redefined to mean that the American taxpayer, our government shares with the company 50/50 in the profits, then we need to look to creating government agencies and hiring Americans for this work and keeping ALL the profits from our nationalized corporation for the American people.

As for those who mine natural resources at least 50% of that profit should be returned to the people of this nation.

How do you spell More of the Same? M-c-C-a-i-n

Liz — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 02:22:53 EDT

Here is a you-tube of McCain declaring the recent Supreme Court Decision on Guantanamo Bay the worst decision ever.

"There are some 'bad' people down there."

"Some" Senator, what about the others? What about the people, many of them innocents who were fingered by people who not only had a personal grudge against them but who were also paid by representatives of the US military to round up suspects. What about these people many of them who have been there for years.

Also to listen to McCain you would think that he and Joe Lieberman have seen to it that the people in Guantanamo are not tortured--BS. McCain is such a damn liar it is disgusting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF0zTv3AFaE

Four dollar a gallon gasoline? Why?

Ron McBride — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 14:39:11 EDT

On June 6th, 2008 the average price of gasoline across the nation rose to $4 per gallon. â€œThereâ€™s nothing worse for our economy than surging energy prices at record highs,â€ said Mark Zandi, Chief Economist for Moodys.com. What do Jesse James and Big Oil have in common? Nothing if you believe the legends of Jesse James, who supposedly robbed from the rich and distributed his ill gotten gains to the poor. Big Oil robs from all of us and keeps the ill gotten gains for themselves.

Slave Labor Used to Construct US Embassy in Baghdad

Liz — Sat, 03 May 2008 06:44:36 EDT

Again and again I have witnessed a frustrating phenomenon during these past eight years of Bush: I will read or hear some story about something that this administration has done and I will think: “Now this is it! They have REALLY done it now. He and Cheney will both be impeached. And then the story is somehow absorbed into the ionosphere and forgotten. Nothing happens.

Here are a few “for instances”

We learn via testimony to Congressional members that literally slave labor was used to build the US Embassy in Baghdad and nothing happens. (Interesting parallel in that we used slave labor to build the White House and we use slave labor to build the US Embassy in Baghdad.)

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/07/26/slave-labor-used-to-contruct-us-embassy-in-baghdad/

We learn that Blackwater, a government contractor was murdering Iraqi citizens wantonly. And they are still over here and they are still being paid millions of dollars thanks to the American taxpayer. And nothing happens.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/10/13/blackwater.witnesses/index.html

We elect a Democratic Congress on the mandate to bring our troops home almost two years ago. And what has happened? We have sent even more troops over there.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-hayden/the-mandate-for-peace_b_37769.html

We need change real change and it will not happen by electing a “more of the same” candidate who is steeped in years of business as usual.

blackwater contract renewed

annie b (mcliberal) — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 11:46:24 EDT

nothing like more free reign to pillage and plunder!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/04/blackwaters-iraq-contract_n_95168.html

Senator Clinton Cosponsors Legislation to Ban Use of Private Security Contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan

Private Joker — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 16:39:41 EST

http://clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/details.cfm?id=293878

This is a bold move by Senator Clinton. Obama has stated that he will not "rule out" use of mercenaries. Blackwater is endangering our troops and is not serving the interest of the Iraqi people.

Here's the nation article:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080317/scahill

Where the "Troops" will Come From

Liz — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 09:36:16 EST

In a regcent blog someone asked where all the troops are going to come from. I may have found the answer. Of course, in addition to the robots, we can also add the thousands of young people who will have to go to work for Blackwater when the only job market becomes war.

The Agence France Presse yesterday ran an article on automated killer robots. These robots don't even require a human hand to press a trigger. Apparently we have more than 4,000 US miliary robots engaged today in Iraq.

Check out http://www.afp.com/english/home/

and also Common Dreams for a summary

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/02/27/7328/

AND THIS IS ONE MORE REASON: VOTE DEMOCRAT IN NOVEMBER.

WELCOME BLACKWATER - Protectors of the Banana Republic

Liz — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 03:26:48 EST

Welcome to the Banana Republic of the USA.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqM4tKPDlR8

You want more of this? Then cast your votes for another Dynasty here in the USA. Vote Hillary.

Blackwater shares new 15 billion dollar contract

Julie — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 12:05:02 EST

Blackwater, Other Defense Behemoths, Get $15 Billion Narco-Military Contract
Despite intensive scrutiny of embattled military contractor Blackwater for killing Iraqi civilians, the Moyock, N.C.-based company will still share a chunk of an unrelated $15 billion U.S. Army Space & Missile Defense Command contract awarded last month. Blackwater, Lockheed Martin, ARINC Engineering Services, Raytheon, and Northrup Grumman/TASC, Inc. were jointly awarded the multi-billion contract Aug. 24...

Blackwater: Romney's new best friends

Julie — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 01:36:16 EST

From Jeremy Scahill at The Nation:

Meanwhile, Blackwater is deep in the camp of GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Cofer Black [Blackwater's number 2] is Romney's senior adviser on counterterrorism. At the recent CNN/YouTube debate, when Romney refused to call waterboarding torture, he said, "I'm not going to specify the specific means of what is and what is not torture so that the people that we capture will know what things we're able to do and what things we're not able to do. And I get that advice from Cofer Black, who is a person who was responsible for counterterrorism in the CIA for some thirty-five years." That was an exaggeration of Black's career at the CIA (he was there twenty-eight years and head of counterterrorism for only three), but a Romney presidency could make Blackwater's business under Bush look like a church bake sale.

This is one of those astounding articles that should be on your 'must read' list tomorrow, my friends. Unless of course you read it already ^o^

In that case, go read it again.

I'll Give You Your Country Back

Julie — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 11:03:49 EST

Dennis wants to give us our country back. The problem is that a lot of Americans who aren't paying attention to the goings-on in Washington don't even realize they lost it. The following quotes are from an article by Ariel Alexovich in The Caucus, the NYT political blog:

The congressman from Ohio focused on the theme “Defending the Constitution” during the 90-minute event on New Hampshire public access television and the Internet. “If you give me your vote, I’ll give you your country back,” he said.

He fielded a question on health care using the Constitution:

One member of the audience of about 200 asked him why health care isn’t mandated by the Constitution.
Well, I just happen to have my copy of the Constitution with me, Mr. Kucinich replied. He pulled it out from his pocket and read aloud the Preamble — emphasizing the line promote the general welfare. Health and welfare are almost synonymous, he said before detailing his plan to make the health care system not for profit. Every American would receive free medical and dental care under his plan.

Dennis Kucinich opposes a lot of the draconian pseudo-solutions enacted by the current Administration regarding terrorists, rightly assessing their impact as being much more an infringment on American rights and liberties than a hindrance to terrorists. My opinion, which I think is closely aligned with Kucinich, is that if you destroy the American Constitutional Freedoms in an attempt to defeat terrorism, you have destroyed the very thing you were fighting to defend in the first place.

Mr. Kucinich also addressed his outrage at the way anyone labeled an enemy combatant to the United States can be put in prison and denied his or her constitutional rights to habeas corpus and trial by jury, and is subject to cruel and unusual punishment. Restoring these laws is “fundamental” to the nation’s “moral compass.”
Citizens should under no circumstances be subject to a “thought crime bill,” where they’d be arrested for thinking about committing an terrorist act. “The right to free speech would have to include the right to think … hello!” he said, adding that prosecuting thought crimes would infringe on the Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination.
Under a Kucinich administration, there would be no government wiretapping, eavesdropping, torture, rendition or private military contractors like Blackwater in Iraq. In fact, he would bring home all troops immediately.

Neocons Weakening Our National Security

Bryan M. Williams — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 01:46:13 EST

Scooter Libby was convicted of multiple crimes, including obstruction of justice, and perjury. Just when we though America would finally have justice for all the illegal actions taken by this administration, President Bush intervened and granted "Scooter" Libby clemency. The public seems to misunderstand what exactly happened during the controversy. The real unde! rlying cause of this whole situation was a power grab by Dick Cheney. Cheney unilaterally declassified sections of the National Intelligence Estimate. (The annual, authoritative report on National Security for the United States) Cheney did this to make it easier for this administration to outsource not only our military, but now our intelligence gathering capability. To make matters worse this declassification by a Vice-President has never been done in history. Now former press secretary for the White House, Scott McClellan admits that the Libby "leak" case was a conspiracy that took place in the White House. We have seen our National Defense weakened to further corporate profits for the likes of Halliburton and Blackwater. The Bush administration led us to War in Iraq based on lies, thus the reason Valerie Plame's identify at the CIA was leaked by Cheney and his cohorts; to hurt the credibility of Plame's husband. Plame's husband, Joe Wilson (a longtime State Departm! ent official) who publicly admitted in a NY Times Op-Ed that t! he story about an Iraq-Nigerian Uranium that the Administration was using to lead us into war was a lie that was based on forged documents. The time for impeachment is now. We all know Cheney is the brains behind this greedy corporate cabal in Washington. Now its time for Congress to stand up and proceed with impeaching Cheney before we end up in another war in Iran, based on a continuation of lies, perpetuated to make more money for the War Profitee

Blackwater and Hillary

Liz — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 09:00:57 EST

The two are associated together via Mark Penn. Hillary Clinton’s chief campaign strategist, Mark Penn is CEO of the public relations firm of Burson-Marsteller and president of the polling firm Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates.

Burson-Marsteller is known for its attacks against environmental and consumer groups and its confrontational relationships with organized labor. In addition, Penn’s polling firms have a history of work with the nuclear power industry.

A subsidiary of Burson- Marsteller’s, BKSH, accepted a temporary assignment to coach the CEO of Blackwater before his recent Congressional hearings regarding charges of wanton murders of Iraqi citizens. Naturally, Penn protested this and tried to play down Burson-Marsteller’s association with this firm. However as late as this morning, November 26 I access the website for BKSH and found in their menu bar: “Integration with the Burson-Marsteller Family”.

www.iraqforsale.org Link

Two Marketing Strategies for Attracting Soldier Fodder

Liz — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 10:17:12 EST

TWO MARKETING STRATEGIES FOR ATTRACTING SOLDIER FODDER

STRATEGY ONE: Use Mercenaries like Blackwater and let the American People pay their salaries.

These salaries, according an article from the Washington Post, Oct 1, 2007, U.S. Pays Steep Price for Private Security in Iraq by Walter Pincus: “. . . . data provided to the House panel, the average per-day pay to personnel Blackwater hired was $600. An unmarried sergeant given Iraq pay and relief from U.S. taxes makes about $83 to $85 a day, given time in service. A married sergeant with children makes about double that, $170 a day. . . .”We know about Blackwater—the private contractor for mercenary soldiers.

If you want more detail, here is a great video on Blackwater.

The following link is Iraq for sale org. This is particularly instructive for those who might be considering a corporate centrist democrat. You might want to rethink that choice.

www.iraqforsale.org

Obama and Hillary's Campaign Strategists

Liz — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 16:40:15 EST

I find it interesting to learn about the chief campaign strategists for the Candidates. If I had more time today I would research all the candidates.

But as it is I only have time for two: Hillary and Barack.

I'll attach what I found in the event you find this interesting as well.

HAPPY EVENING TO YOU ALL.

Out-of-Control Cowboys in Iraq

HillWilliam — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 12:33:13 EDT

Build a Frontier and You Get Cowboys

From HuffPo

Yesterday we talked about the Blackwater scandal, setting it in the larger context of what Naomi calls the new economy of the Disaster Capitalism Complex. We also talked about cowboys, frontiers and the perennial power of John Wayne. Here's the rest of that discussion:

Cusack: So apart from getting obscenely rich, what are these private security and other contractor companies doing with this tsunami of public money that is being thrown at them?

Klein: Well, unlike the government, which has allowed the public infrastructure to erode so that we now have collapsing bridges and levees, these guys are making serious and sturdy capital investments. They're planning for the future, building infrastructure -- in Blackwater's case, paramilitary infrastructure. Founded in 1996, the company has used the steady stream of contracts during the Bush years to build up a private army of twenty thousand on-call mercenary soldiers and a massive military base in North Carolina worth between $40 and $50 million. They have armored vehicles, helicopter gunships, manmade lakes, a Boeing 767, a Zeppelin.

Cusack: Like the Hindenburg -- Eric Prince has a lot of toys. The Zeppelin -- that one had to be the fulfillment of a boyhood dream.

Klein: You hear people complain about how Hezbollah is a "state-within-a-state" in Lebanon -- what about Blackwater in the USA? And that's just one company of hundreds, and a relatively small player compared to Lockheed and GE and Booz Allen. But once again, we can't keep being surprised by this shadow world -- it is an inevitable consequence of Rumsfeld's vision of an outsourced and contracted-out state. A right-wing journal in the U.S. called Blackwater "al Qaeda for the good guys" and it's a striking analogy.

There's much more at the link. Emphasis above is mine.

Our constitution does not allow for a shadow government, nor should we tolerate treasonous, anti-American factions in our midst. The constitution strictly forbids the amassing of private armies -- we have a military for that very purpose. Congress should immediately nationalize Blackwater et al, and members of these illegal private militias should be conscripted to fill the shortfall in military recruiting.

They wanna play soldier? I say, let them be soldiers -- in the legitmate and constitutionally-provided military.

Privateering outlaws with guns and obscene pay, proselytizing cultists in the military... This is the madness the neoKKKons have wrought. Lady Liberty has doused her torch, turned away and hung her head in shame at what treasonous profiteers and subversive cultists have turned our nation into.

I suspect that Ben Franklin and Ike have rolled over in their graves, mumbling "I told you so."

Birth Of Blackwater ( Right Wing Christian Dynasty) VIDEO

FreedomOfSpeech — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 09:51:00 EDT

Background on Blackwater

Who owns Blackwater?

A right wing "good Christian" pro-corporate family that controls over $1 billion in assets amd has been very generous to the Bush family.

Blackwater is just one of their projects.

Where does Blackwater get its personnel? Ex-US military, of course. They also go to places like Chile and Colombia to hire US-trained right wing gun thugs.

Could Blackwater ever be used against American citizens?

It already has.

Armed Blackwater operatives making $900 per day were the first into New Orleans before FEMA, the Red Cross and the National Guard.

Currently, Blackwater is suing the families of four of its employees who were killed in Iraq for $10 million each.

Their offense?

They wanted to know how their family members were killed, the company refused to tell them, so they sued for the information.

VIDEOS

Lieberman Has No Plans To Investigate Blackwater, Corrupt Iraq Contractors

FreedomOfSpeech — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 09:39:07 EDT

SICK ! SICK ! SICK ! Dude is the CHAIRMAN of the Senate committee responsible for government oversight ! Thanks a lot Harry Reid !

SNIP;

"You've got to set your own priorities, and it was clear to me that other committees were going to pick this up," said Lieberman.

OH PLEASE !

Barack BLASTS Blackwater !

FreedomOfSpeech — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 06:01:00 EDT

Says Private Contractors Making Iraq More Dangerous For Troops

Wow. Somebodys having "Church" in the background. "Gloray!" LOL