Nixon and Trump – There is a Difference

It’s impossible to not look at history as the Trump Administration seems to be crumbling under the weight of scandal after scandal. The ties to Russia appear to be growing and becoming more irrefutable. The President and his aids are certainly acting much like people in the Nixon White House leading up to the resignation. The Comey firing is akin to Nixon’s Saturday night massacre. It certainly looks like an attempt to cover it up us underway, and the idea of White House tapes of conversations have been thrown around. But there are differences between the Nixon and Trump Administrations, and that’s what I hope to analyze here.

Read more

Some Leaks Are More Important Than Others

Less than a week after a Washington Post story about the existence of the CIA’s secret prisons, Sen. Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) and House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) have called for an investigation into the leak of this information. “Such an egregious disclosure could have long-term and far-reaching damaging and dangerous consequences.”

Read more

Alito Faces Questions from the Senate

This guy fits right in with the current crop of Republicans. During his 1990 nomination as an appeals court judge, Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito promised to recuse himself, to avoid potential conflicts of interest, in cases “involving Vanguard, in which he owned mutual fund shares; Smith Barney, his brokerage firm; First Federal Savings & Loan of Rochester, N.Y., which held his home mortgage; and his sister’s law firm.”

Read more

White House May Have Torpedoed Abramoff Corruption Probe

In November 2002, the U.S. attorney in Guam, Frederick A. Black, notified Justice Department officials that he was opening an investigation into Jack Abramoff’s lobbying activities with Guam judges. Days later, Black was demoted and barred from pursuing public corruption cases, ending his investigation.

Read more

Congress Wants More Giveaways to Big Oil

Bush’s allies in Congress are using high gas prices as another excuse for massive giveaways to the oil industry. The Los Angeles Times reports that conservative “leaders in Congress announced plans to introduce new legislation or amend existing measures to bestow more tax breaks on the industry and provide other incentives left out of the big energy bill Bush signed into law in August.”

Read more

Haliburton Taking Good Care of Our Troops

Not only did Halliburton’s KBR subsidiary serve U.S. troops in Iraq spoiled food (sometimes a year past the expiration date), but also contaminated water from Iraq’s Euphrates River, containing “numerous pathogenic organisms” at nearly two times the normal contamination levels of untreated water. “[R]aw sewage is routinely dumped less than two miles from the water intake location.”

Read more

Sen. Frist; Insider Trading Or Sudden Bout of Ethics?

Stock prices for Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) fell 15 percent in late July, but not before Sen. Majority Leader Bill Frist unloaded his family’s shares. HCA is the nation’s largest for-profit hospital chain, founded by Frist’s father and directed by Frist’s brother, who is also a leading stockholder.

Read more

Top Bush Official Arrested In Corruption Probe

David Safavian, who until Friday headed the “obscure but extremely important” federal procurement office in the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), was arrested yesterday, accused by federal agents of “lying and obstructing a criminal investigation into Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s dealings with the federal government.”

Read more