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Kid Berwyn
Kid Berwyn's Journal
Kid Berwyn's Journal
September 20, 2019
By Emily Stewart
Vox.com, Sep 20, 2019, 8:30am EDT
Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s unofficial campaign slogan is “she’s got a plan for that.” The reality is, she has just one.
She wants to finish what she started when she first came to Washington. And she will bring with her a cadre of energetic, ideologically committed regulators who will go after the bad guys of corporate America who she believes have crippled the national economy.
If Warren wins the presidency, she, like any Democrat, will face steep odds of getting an ambitious legislative agenda through Congress. The real action in any administration is executive in nature: knowing what regulatory buttons to push, which enforcers can really go foor blood, who to put where, and how to manage them.
Snip...
Warren saw Geithner and other key members of Obama’s team such as National Economic Council Director Larry Summers (and by extension Obama himself) as too soft on Wall Street and too compromised by ties to the business world. These days, Siewert runs global corporate communications for Goldman Sachs, Geithner is president of the investment bank Warburg Pincus, and Summers has moonlighted as an adviser to Citigroup and D.E. Shaw while teaching at Harvard and taking shots at Warren’s wealth tax.
I spoke with 30 current and former government officials and employees, lobbyists, industry insiders, consumer advocates, and members of Warren’s inner circle to understand who Warren really is, not only as a policymaker but also as an executive, a decisionmaker, and a leader. Her supporters and detractors describe her as ruthlessly committed to her ideals — and ruthlessly effective at making them real.
Continues...
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/20/20867899/elizabeth-warren-cfpb-founding-plans-obama-president
Elizabeth Warren has just one plan
A detailed look at Warren’s successes and failures at the start of the CFPB — and what they tell us about how she might govern.By Emily Stewart
Vox.com, Sep 20, 2019, 8:30am EDT
Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s unofficial campaign slogan is “she’s got a plan for that.” The reality is, she has just one.
She wants to finish what she started when she first came to Washington. And she will bring with her a cadre of energetic, ideologically committed regulators who will go after the bad guys of corporate America who she believes have crippled the national economy.
If Warren wins the presidency, she, like any Democrat, will face steep odds of getting an ambitious legislative agenda through Congress. The real action in any administration is executive in nature: knowing what regulatory buttons to push, which enforcers can really go foor blood, who to put where, and how to manage them.
Snip...
Warren saw Geithner and other key members of Obama’s team such as National Economic Council Director Larry Summers (and by extension Obama himself) as too soft on Wall Street and too compromised by ties to the business world. These days, Siewert runs global corporate communications for Goldman Sachs, Geithner is president of the investment bank Warburg Pincus, and Summers has moonlighted as an adviser to Citigroup and D.E. Shaw while teaching at Harvard and taking shots at Warren’s wealth tax.
I spoke with 30 current and former government officials and employees, lobbyists, industry insiders, consumer advocates, and members of Warren’s inner circle to understand who Warren really is, not only as a policymaker but also as an executive, a decisionmaker, and a leader. Her supporters and detractors describe her as ruthlessly committed to her ideals — and ruthlessly effective at making them real.
Continues...
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/20/20867899/elizabeth-warren-cfpb-founding-plans-obama-president
September 18, 2019
Bill Barr: The “Cover-Up General”
"At the center of the criticism is the chief articulator of Bush's imperial presidency," we reported in 1992, "the man who wrote the legal rationale for the Gulf War, the Panama invasion, and the officially sanctioned kidnapping of foreign nationals abroad"
by FRANK SNEPP
The Village Voice, APRIL 18, 2019
Snip...
For the next two years, as chief of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, Barr played a key role in shaping Richard Thornburgh’s stormy tenure as attorney general. In a job that was essentially political, he helped maintain the administration’s ideological purity by screening out judicial candidates who weren’t conservative enough. He also drafted two key documents rationalizing the U.S. invasion of Panama and the seizure of General Manuel Noriega.
Snip...
In mid 1990, as Thornburgh’s own problems with Congress deepened, Barr was tapped to run interference, and was named deputy attorney general. The appointment came just in time for him to draft another landmark tract for the administration, the legal pretext for the undeclared war against Iraq. It would have made any Nixonite proud. Explaining it later to Congress, Barr said he believed there was a “gray zone” between a declared offensive war and an emergency defensive action where “there is latitude for the president, if he believes that the vital interests of the United States are threatened by foreign military attack, there is room for him to respond.”
Barr did not make clear how the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait equaled an attack on vital American interests, but to his credit, at the moment of decision itself, he did counsel the president to soften the impact of his unilateral rush to war by seeking a declaration of congressional support. That piece of advice, much akin to Johnson’s leveraging of the Tonkin Gulf resolution, helped to keep the naysayers at bay.
Barr’s service to the administration, however, wasn’t limited simply to such flashes of political savvy. In 1991 he became active in stone-walling the Iraqgate and the BCCI investigations and further gratified conservatives by keeping up the tattoo on their favorite hot-button issues. Embracing immigration policy as his own, he helped craft an exception rule that automatically barred HIV-positive sufferers from entering the country. Civil libertarians charged illegal discrimination and even racism, since many of those excluded were black Haitians. Barr assured Congress that the policy was meant only to keep out people who might be thrown back on public welfare.
Flogging another conservative hobbyhorse, Barr fought hard as deputy AG to keep federal courts from expanding their right to review state criminal convictions on writs of habeas corpus. As a devout Catholic, he also pandered to the antiabortion crowd, even “torquing” the law in August 1991 to advance their crusade. The challenge came when a federal judge in Wichita issued an order barring anti-abortion demonstrators from blocking access to a clinic. The Justice Department intervened to try to force a lifting of the ban. Later asked about this by Congress, Barr gave an exquisitely technical rationale, asserting that though the demonstrators were “lawbreakers . . . treading on other people’s rights,” they “should be dealt with” in state court, not federal court — thus the federal judge’s order was unenforceable.
Continues...
https://www.villagevoice.com/2019/04/18/attorney-general-william-barr-is-the-best-reason-to-vote-for-clinton/
Barr is the rock which covers all manner of the vilest treasons.
Bill Barr, secret policeman for the deep state
This is why we can’t have nice things.
Bill Barr: The “Cover-Up General”
"At the center of the criticism is the chief articulator of Bush's imperial presidency," we reported in 1992, "the man who wrote the legal rationale for the Gulf War, the Panama invasion, and the officially sanctioned kidnapping of foreign nationals abroad"
by FRANK SNEPP
The Village Voice, APRIL 18, 2019
Snip...
For the next two years, as chief of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, Barr played a key role in shaping Richard Thornburgh’s stormy tenure as attorney general. In a job that was essentially political, he helped maintain the administration’s ideological purity by screening out judicial candidates who weren’t conservative enough. He also drafted two key documents rationalizing the U.S. invasion of Panama and the seizure of General Manuel Noriega.
Snip...
In mid 1990, as Thornburgh’s own problems with Congress deepened, Barr was tapped to run interference, and was named deputy attorney general. The appointment came just in time for him to draft another landmark tract for the administration, the legal pretext for the undeclared war against Iraq. It would have made any Nixonite proud. Explaining it later to Congress, Barr said he believed there was a “gray zone” between a declared offensive war and an emergency defensive action where “there is latitude for the president, if he believes that the vital interests of the United States are threatened by foreign military attack, there is room for him to respond.”
Barr did not make clear how the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait equaled an attack on vital American interests, but to his credit, at the moment of decision itself, he did counsel the president to soften the impact of his unilateral rush to war by seeking a declaration of congressional support. That piece of advice, much akin to Johnson’s leveraging of the Tonkin Gulf resolution, helped to keep the naysayers at bay.
Barr’s service to the administration, however, wasn’t limited simply to such flashes of political savvy. In 1991 he became active in stone-walling the Iraqgate and the BCCI investigations and further gratified conservatives by keeping up the tattoo on their favorite hot-button issues. Embracing immigration policy as his own, he helped craft an exception rule that automatically barred HIV-positive sufferers from entering the country. Civil libertarians charged illegal discrimination and even racism, since many of those excluded were black Haitians. Barr assured Congress that the policy was meant only to keep out people who might be thrown back on public welfare.
Flogging another conservative hobbyhorse, Barr fought hard as deputy AG to keep federal courts from expanding their right to review state criminal convictions on writs of habeas corpus. As a devout Catholic, he also pandered to the antiabortion crowd, even “torquing” the law in August 1991 to advance their crusade. The challenge came when a federal judge in Wichita issued an order barring anti-abortion demonstrators from blocking access to a clinic. The Justice Department intervened to try to force a lifting of the ban. Later asked about this by Congress, Barr gave an exquisitely technical rationale, asserting that though the demonstrators were “lawbreakers . . . treading on other people’s rights,” they “should be dealt with” in state court, not federal court — thus the federal judge’s order was unenforceable.
Continues...
https://www.villagevoice.com/2019/04/18/attorney-general-william-barr-is-the-best-reason-to-vote-for-clinton/
Barr is the rock which covers all manner of the vilest treasons.
September 17, 2019
Federal judge: Epstein’s death dashes women’s hopes to toss secret pact
U.S. District Judge Kenneth Marra said Epstein’s death means he can’t throw out a once-secret agreement that allowed the 66-year-old financier to escape federal prosecution.
by Jane Musgrave
Palm Beach Daily Post, Sept. 16, 2019
WEST PALM BEACH — When convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein killed himself in a New York City jail cell last month, a lawsuit his victims filed to expose federal prosecutors’ mishandling of his case died with him, a federal judge ruled Monday.
In a 15-page order, U.S. District Judge Kenneth Marra said Epstein’s death means he can’t throw out a once-secret agreement that allowed the 66-year-old financier to escape federal prosecution for sexually abusing dozens of teenage girls at his Palm Beach mansion.
“As a result of Mr. Epstein’s death, there can be no criminal prosecution against him and the Court cannot consider granting this relief to the victims,” Marra wrote.
Further, while the controversial non-prosecution agreement also gave immunity to four women and unnamed others who helped the politically-connected millionaire recruit, groom or use teens for sex, Marra said he can’t waive the protection they received.
Source: https://www.palmbeachdailynews.com/news/20190916/federal-judge-epsteinrsquos-death-dashes--womenrsquos-hopes-to-toss-secret-pact
So. Who CAN waive the protection of child sex traffickers?
It's GOP wide.
Federal Judge Marra (appointed by Smirko W Bush) yesterday ruled in favor of Alexander Acosta and the departed Epstein.
Federal judge: Epstein’s death dashes women’s hopes to toss secret pact
U.S. District Judge Kenneth Marra said Epstein’s death means he can’t throw out a once-secret agreement that allowed the 66-year-old financier to escape federal prosecution.
by Jane Musgrave
Palm Beach Daily Post, Sept. 16, 2019
WEST PALM BEACH — When convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein killed himself in a New York City jail cell last month, a lawsuit his victims filed to expose federal prosecutors’ mishandling of his case died with him, a federal judge ruled Monday.
In a 15-page order, U.S. District Judge Kenneth Marra said Epstein’s death means he can’t throw out a once-secret agreement that allowed the 66-year-old financier to escape federal prosecution for sexually abusing dozens of teenage girls at his Palm Beach mansion.
“As a result of Mr. Epstein’s death, there can be no criminal prosecution against him and the Court cannot consider granting this relief to the victims,” Marra wrote.
Further, while the controversial non-prosecution agreement also gave immunity to four women and unnamed others who helped the politically-connected millionaire recruit, groom or use teens for sex, Marra said he can’t waive the protection they received.
Source: https://www.palmbeachdailynews.com/news/20190916/federal-judge-epsteinrsquos-death-dashes--womenrsquos-hopes-to-toss-secret-pact
So. Who CAN waive the protection of child sex traffickers?
September 17, 2019
Seems to be a pattern: Epstein-Trump-Barr-Acosta and now Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin.
Steven Mnuchin’s Mysterious Link to Creepy Epstein Model Scout
The Treasury secretary’s name shows up on official records for a company formed in the 1980s by Jeffrey Epstein’s close friend, the model scout Jean-Luc Brunel.
Emily Shugerman
Daily Beast, Gender Reporter, Updated 09.16.19 7:57AM ET, Published 09.15.19
In the late 1980s—before he was a member of Donald Trump’s Cabinet, or even a high-rolling hedge-fund manager—Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin served in an official capacity for a business run by one of Jeffrey Epstein’s most infamous associates.
In official records, Mnuchin is listed as the official state point of contact for Next Management Corporation, a company formed in 1988 by modeling-industry insiders Jean-Luc Brunel and Arnaud Brunel. At the time, Jean-Luc Brunel had just been the subject of a 60 Minutes documentary accusing him of drugging and raping at least three models. Later, he would be accused by two women of supplying girls to Epstein to be sexually abused. (Brunel has denied the allegations.)
Records accessed by The Daily Beast list Mnuchin as the New York Department of State process for Next Management Corporation. According to department officials, the DOS process is the person who files a company’s registration papers and receives lawsuits and other official documents on their behalf—usually a lawyer or some other legal representative.
Snip...
Mnuchin’s office did confirm that he was longtime friends with Faith Kates, the owner of the Next modeling agency. The Brunel brothers co-founded the Next agency with Kates in 1989, and their company, Next Management Corp., owned a 25 percent stake in the agency for several years. The address listed under Mnuchin’s name in the state department records is the first address for Kates’ company, Next Management Company.
Continues...
https://www.thedailybeast.com/steven-mnuchins-mysterious-link-to-creepy-epstein-model-scout-jean-luc-brunel?ref=scroll
Gee. When it comes to the sexual exploitation of minors, it really is a small world.
Another Trump Cabinet member tied to Epstein: MNUCHIN
Seems to be a pattern: Epstein-Trump-Barr-Acosta and now Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin.
Steven Mnuchin’s Mysterious Link to Creepy Epstein Model Scout
The Treasury secretary’s name shows up on official records for a company formed in the 1980s by Jeffrey Epstein’s close friend, the model scout Jean-Luc Brunel.
Emily Shugerman
Daily Beast, Gender Reporter, Updated 09.16.19 7:57AM ET, Published 09.15.19
In the late 1980s—before he was a member of Donald Trump’s Cabinet, or even a high-rolling hedge-fund manager—Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin served in an official capacity for a business run by one of Jeffrey Epstein’s most infamous associates.
In official records, Mnuchin is listed as the official state point of contact for Next Management Corporation, a company formed in 1988 by modeling-industry insiders Jean-Luc Brunel and Arnaud Brunel. At the time, Jean-Luc Brunel had just been the subject of a 60 Minutes documentary accusing him of drugging and raping at least three models. Later, he would be accused by two women of supplying girls to Epstein to be sexually abused. (Brunel has denied the allegations.)
Records accessed by The Daily Beast list Mnuchin as the New York Department of State process for Next Management Corporation. According to department officials, the DOS process is the person who files a company’s registration papers and receives lawsuits and other official documents on their behalf—usually a lawyer or some other legal representative.
Snip...
Mnuchin’s office did confirm that he was longtime friends with Faith Kates, the owner of the Next modeling agency. The Brunel brothers co-founded the Next agency with Kates in 1989, and their company, Next Management Corp., owned a 25 percent stake in the agency for several years. The address listed under Mnuchin’s name in the state department records is the first address for Kates’ company, Next Management Company.
Continues...
https://www.thedailybeast.com/steven-mnuchins-mysterious-link-to-creepy-epstein-model-scout-jean-luc-brunel?ref=scroll
Gee. When it comes to the sexual exploitation of minors, it really is a small world.
September 14, 2019
Bill Barr: The “Cover-Up General”
"At the center of the criticism is the chief articulator of Bush's imperial presidency," we reported in 1992, "the man who wrote the legal rationale for the Gulf War, the Panama invasion, and the officially sanctioned kidnapping of foreign nationals abroad"
by FRANK SNEPP
The Village Voice, APRIL 18, 2019
Snip...
For the next two years, as chief of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, Barr played a key role in shaping Richard Thornburgh’s stormy tenure as attorney general. In a job that was essentially political, he helped maintain the administration’s ideological purity by screening out judicial candidates who weren’t conservative enough. He also drafted two key documents rationalizing the U.S. invasion of Panama and the seizure of General Manuel Noriega.
Snip...
In mid 1990, as Thornburgh’s own problems with Congress deepened, Barr was tapped to run interference, and was named deputy attorney general. The appointment came just in time for him to draft another landmark tract for the administration, the legal pretext for the undeclared war against Iraq. It would have made any Nixonite proud. Explaining it later to Congress, Barr said he believed there was a “gray zone” between a declared offensive war and an emergency defensive action where “there is latitude for the president, if he believes that the vital interests of the United States are threatened by foreign military attack, there is room for him to respond.”
Barr did not make clear how the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait equaled an attack on vital American interests, but to his credit, at the moment of decision itself, he did counsel the president to soften the impact of his unilateral rush to war by seeking a declaration of congressional support. That piece of advice, much akin to Johnson’s leveraging of the Tonkin Gulf resolution, helped to keep the naysayers at bay.
Barr’s service to the administration, however, wasn’t limited simply to such flashes of political savvy. In 1991 he became active in stone-walling the Iraqgate and the BCCI investigations and further gratified conservatives by keeping up the tattoo on their favorite hot-button issues. Embracing immigration policy as his own, he helped craft an exception rule that automatically barred HIV-positive sufferers from entering the country. Civil libertarians charged illegal discrimination and even racism, since many of those excluded were black Haitians. Barr assured Congress that the policy was meant only to keep out people who might be thrown back on public welfare.
Flogging another conservative hobbyhorse, Barr fought hard as deputy AG to keep federal courts from expanding their right to review state criminal convictions on writs of habeas corpus. As a devout Catholic, he also pandered to the antiabortion crowd, even “torquing” the law in August 1991 to advance their crusade. The challenge came when a federal judge in Wichita issued an order barring anti-abortion demonstrators from blocking access to a clinic. The Justice Department intervened to try to force a lifting of the ban. Later asked about this by Congress, Barr gave an exquisitely technical rationale, asserting that though the demonstrators were “lawbreakers . . . treading on other people’s rights,” they “should be dealt with” in state court, not federal court — thus the federal judge’s order was unenforceable.
Continues...
https://www.villagevoice.com/2019/04/18/attorney-general-william-barr-is-the-best-reason-to-vote-for-clinton/
Barr is the rock from under which crawl all manner of the vilest treasons.
His Story
Bill Barr, Capitalism’s Invisible Army.
Bill Barr: The “Cover-Up General”
"At the center of the criticism is the chief articulator of Bush's imperial presidency," we reported in 1992, "the man who wrote the legal rationale for the Gulf War, the Panama invasion, and the officially sanctioned kidnapping of foreign nationals abroad"
by FRANK SNEPP
The Village Voice, APRIL 18, 2019
Snip...
For the next two years, as chief of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, Barr played a key role in shaping Richard Thornburgh’s stormy tenure as attorney general. In a job that was essentially political, he helped maintain the administration’s ideological purity by screening out judicial candidates who weren’t conservative enough. He also drafted two key documents rationalizing the U.S. invasion of Panama and the seizure of General Manuel Noriega.
Snip...
In mid 1990, as Thornburgh’s own problems with Congress deepened, Barr was tapped to run interference, and was named deputy attorney general. The appointment came just in time for him to draft another landmark tract for the administration, the legal pretext for the undeclared war against Iraq. It would have made any Nixonite proud. Explaining it later to Congress, Barr said he believed there was a “gray zone” between a declared offensive war and an emergency defensive action where “there is latitude for the president, if he believes that the vital interests of the United States are threatened by foreign military attack, there is room for him to respond.”
Barr did not make clear how the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait equaled an attack on vital American interests, but to his credit, at the moment of decision itself, he did counsel the president to soften the impact of his unilateral rush to war by seeking a declaration of congressional support. That piece of advice, much akin to Johnson’s leveraging of the Tonkin Gulf resolution, helped to keep the naysayers at bay.
Barr’s service to the administration, however, wasn’t limited simply to such flashes of political savvy. In 1991 he became active in stone-walling the Iraqgate and the BCCI investigations and further gratified conservatives by keeping up the tattoo on their favorite hot-button issues. Embracing immigration policy as his own, he helped craft an exception rule that automatically barred HIV-positive sufferers from entering the country. Civil libertarians charged illegal discrimination and even racism, since many of those excluded were black Haitians. Barr assured Congress that the policy was meant only to keep out people who might be thrown back on public welfare.
Flogging another conservative hobbyhorse, Barr fought hard as deputy AG to keep federal courts from expanding their right to review state criminal convictions on writs of habeas corpus. As a devout Catholic, he also pandered to the antiabortion crowd, even “torquing” the law in August 1991 to advance their crusade. The challenge came when a federal judge in Wichita issued an order barring anti-abortion demonstrators from blocking access to a clinic. The Justice Department intervened to try to force a lifting of the ban. Later asked about this by Congress, Barr gave an exquisitely technical rationale, asserting that though the demonstrators were “lawbreakers . . . treading on other people’s rights,” they “should be dealt with” in state court, not federal court — thus the federal judge’s order was unenforceable.
Continues...
https://www.villagevoice.com/2019/04/18/attorney-general-william-barr-is-the-best-reason-to-vote-for-clinton/
Barr is the rock from under which crawl all manner of the vilest treasons.
September 13, 2019
Alex Carey said that the people of the US have been subjected to an unparalleled, expensive, 3/4 century long propaganda effort designed to expand corporate rights by undermining democracy and destroying the unions. Carey’s unique view of US history goes back to World War I and ends with the Reagan era.
https://tucradio.org/podcasts/newest-podcasts/alex-carey-corporations-and-propaganda-part-one-of-two/
And Part the 2nd:
https://tucradio.org/podcasts/newest-podcasts/alex-carey-corporations-and-propaganda-part-two-of-two/
The rich get richer and democracy vanishes down the Memory Hole.
You are most welcome. Important history from TUC Radio
Time of Useful Consciousness explains monetized mass propaganda and its impact - now more than a century in action...Alex Carey said that the people of the US have been subjected to an unparalleled, expensive, 3/4 century long propaganda effort designed to expand corporate rights by undermining democracy and destroying the unions. Carey’s unique view of US history goes back to World War I and ends with the Reagan era.
https://tucradio.org/podcasts/newest-podcasts/alex-carey-corporations-and-propaganda-part-one-of-two/
And Part the 2nd:
https://tucradio.org/podcasts/newest-podcasts/alex-carey-corporations-and-propaganda-part-two-of-two/
The rich get richer and democracy vanishes down the Memory Hole.
September 12, 2019
Thanks a lot, Todd Spence. I can't stop laughing.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Todd_Spence/status/1171598282444853249
Someone combined an image of Michael Bolton and John Bolton and I can't unsee it.
Thanks a lot, Todd Spence. I can't stop laughing.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Todd_Spence/status/1171598282444853249
September 11, 2019
While Bush vacationed, 9/11 warnings went unheard.
By Fred Kaplan
In an otherwise dry day of hearings before the 9/11 commission, one brief bit of dialogue set off a sudden flash of clarity on the basic question of how our government let disaster happen.
The revelation came this morning, when CIA Director George Tenet was on the stand. Timothy Roemer, a former Democratic congressman, asked him when he first found out about the report from the FBI's Minnesota field office that Zacarias Moussaoui, an Islamic jihadist, had been taking lessons on how to fly a 747. Tenet replied that he was briefed about the case on Aug. 23 or 24, 2001.
Roemer then asked Tenet if he mentioned Moussaoui to President Bush at one of their frequent morning briefings. Tenet replied, "I was not in briefings at this time." Bush, he noted, "was on vacation." He added that he didn't see the president at all in August 2001. During the entire month, Bush was at his ranch in Texas. "You never talked with him?" Roemer asked. "No," Tenet replied. By the way, for much of August, Tenet too was, as he put it, "on leave."
And there you have it. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice has made a big point of the fact that Tenet briefed the president nearly every day. Yet at the peak moment of threat, the two didn't talk at all. At a time when action was needed, and orders for action had to come from the top, the man at the top was resting undisturbed.
Throughout that summer, we now well know, Tenet, Richard Clarke, and several other officials were running around with their "hair on fire," warning that al-Qaida was about to unleash a monumental attack. On Aug. 6, Bush was given the now-famous President's Daily Brief (by one of Tenet's underlings), warning that this attack might take place "inside the United States." For the previous few years—as Philip Zelikow, the commission's staff director, revealed this morning—the CIA had issued several warnings that terrorists might fly commercial airplanes into buildings or cities.
And now, we learn today, at this peak moment, Tenet hears about Moussaoui. Someone might have added 2 + 2 + 2 and possibly busted up the conspiracy. But the president was down on the ranch, taking it easy. Tenet wasn't with him. Tenet never talked with him. Rice—as she has testified—wasn't with Bush, either. He was on his own and, willfully, out of touch.
A USA Today story, written right before Bush took off, reported that the vacation—scheduled to last from Aug. 3 to Sept. 3—would tie one of Richard Nixon's as the longest that any president had ever taken. A week before he left, Bush made a videotaped message for the Boy Scouts of America. On the tape, he said, "I'll be going to my ranch in Crawford, where I'll work and take a little time off. I think it is so important for the president to spend some time away from Washington, in the heartland of America."
CONTINUED...
http://www.slate.com/id/2098861
While Bush vacationed, 9/11 warnings went unheard.
The Out-of-TownerWhile Bush vacationed, 9/11 warnings went unheard.
By Fred Kaplan
In an otherwise dry day of hearings before the 9/11 commission, one brief bit of dialogue set off a sudden flash of clarity on the basic question of how our government let disaster happen.
The revelation came this morning, when CIA Director George Tenet was on the stand. Timothy Roemer, a former Democratic congressman, asked him when he first found out about the report from the FBI's Minnesota field office that Zacarias Moussaoui, an Islamic jihadist, had been taking lessons on how to fly a 747. Tenet replied that he was briefed about the case on Aug. 23 or 24, 2001.
Roemer then asked Tenet if he mentioned Moussaoui to President Bush at one of their frequent morning briefings. Tenet replied, "I was not in briefings at this time." Bush, he noted, "was on vacation." He added that he didn't see the president at all in August 2001. During the entire month, Bush was at his ranch in Texas. "You never talked with him?" Roemer asked. "No," Tenet replied. By the way, for much of August, Tenet too was, as he put it, "on leave."
And there you have it. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice has made a big point of the fact that Tenet briefed the president nearly every day. Yet at the peak moment of threat, the two didn't talk at all. At a time when action was needed, and orders for action had to come from the top, the man at the top was resting undisturbed.
Throughout that summer, we now well know, Tenet, Richard Clarke, and several other officials were running around with their "hair on fire," warning that al-Qaida was about to unleash a monumental attack. On Aug. 6, Bush was given the now-famous President's Daily Brief (by one of Tenet's underlings), warning that this attack might take place "inside the United States." For the previous few years—as Philip Zelikow, the commission's staff director, revealed this morning—the CIA had issued several warnings that terrorists might fly commercial airplanes into buildings or cities.
And now, we learn today, at this peak moment, Tenet hears about Moussaoui. Someone might have added 2 + 2 + 2 and possibly busted up the conspiracy. But the president was down on the ranch, taking it easy. Tenet wasn't with him. Tenet never talked with him. Rice—as she has testified—wasn't with Bush, either. He was on his own and, willfully, out of touch.
A USA Today story, written right before Bush took off, reported that the vacation—scheduled to last from Aug. 3 to Sept. 3—would tie one of Richard Nixon's as the longest that any president had ever taken. A week before he left, Bush made a videotaped message for the Boy Scouts of America. On the tape, he said, "I'll be going to my ranch in Crawford, where I'll work and take a little time off. I think it is so important for the president to spend some time away from Washington, in the heartland of America."
CONTINUED...
http://www.slate.com/id/2098861
September 11, 2019
Why would Osama bin Laden want to kill Dubya, his former business partner?
By James Hatfield
Editor's note: In light of last week's horrific events and the Bush administration's reaction to them, we are reprising the following from the last column Jim Hatfield wrote for Online Journal prior to his tragic death on July 18:
July 3, 2001—There may be fireworks in Genoa, Italy, this month, too.
A plot by Saudi master terrorist, Osama bin Laden, to assassinate Dubya during the July 20 economic summit of world leaders, was uncovered after dozens of suspected Islamic militants linked to bin Laden's international terror network were arrested in Frankfurt, Germany, and Milan, Italy, in April.
German intelligence services have stated that bin Laden is covertly financing neo-Nazi skinhead groups throughout Europe to launch another terrorist attack at a high-profile American target—his first since the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen last October.
According to counter-terrorism experts quoted in Germany's largest newspaper, the attack on Dubya might be a James Bond-like aerial strike in the form of remote-controlled airplanes packed with plastic explosives.
Why would Osama bin Laden want to kill, Dubya, his former business partner?
CONTINUED...
http://web.archive.org/web/20060906150015/http://www.onlinejournal.org/Special_Reports/Hatfield-R-091901/hatfield-r-091901.html
FTR: Hatfield died a few days after this was published. A suicide. By hanging.
Why would Osama bin Laden want to kill, Dubya, his former business partner?
Bush was warned OBL hijacked jet threat at Genoa G-8 summit in July 2001.
So Bush avoided the hotel and slept aboard a missile destroyer in the harbor.
Here's the story from July 2001:
Why would Osama bin Laden want to kill Dubya, his former business partner?
By James Hatfield
Editor's note: In light of last week's horrific events and the Bush administration's reaction to them, we are reprising the following from the last column Jim Hatfield wrote for Online Journal prior to his tragic death on July 18:
July 3, 2001—There may be fireworks in Genoa, Italy, this month, too.
A plot by Saudi master terrorist, Osama bin Laden, to assassinate Dubya during the July 20 economic summit of world leaders, was uncovered after dozens of suspected Islamic militants linked to bin Laden's international terror network were arrested in Frankfurt, Germany, and Milan, Italy, in April.
German intelligence services have stated that bin Laden is covertly financing neo-Nazi skinhead groups throughout Europe to launch another terrorist attack at a high-profile American target—his first since the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen last October.
According to counter-terrorism experts quoted in Germany's largest newspaper, the attack on Dubya might be a James Bond-like aerial strike in the form of remote-controlled airplanes packed with plastic explosives.
Why would Osama bin Laden want to kill, Dubya, his former business partner?
CONTINUED...
http://web.archive.org/web/20060906150015/http://www.onlinejournal.org/Special_Reports/Hatfield-R-091901/hatfield-r-091901.html
FTR: Hatfield died a few days after this was published. A suicide. By hanging.
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