Weapons of Memory Dimunition

* poor rimone has been having internet problems - but she did manage to put together this terrific post about terrorlicious muffins. it turns out some teachers in texas ate some hash muffins - and the Joint Terrorism Task Force was called in - wondering if the muffins were WMD (unless i'm mistaked, she missed the opportunity to make the obvious 'Joint' gag). rimone also quotes someone who may know what happened to iraq's wmds...

* Damien in the comments:

"Hopsicker has a new article claiming that Porter Goss’ resignation last month is directly related to the 5.5 ton cocaine bust in Mexico on 12 April.

The FAA has been withholding the registration records for the DC9 (N900SA) for more than six weeks but an identical twin DC9 (N120NE) owned and operated by the same partnership (SkyWay Aircraft) has previous owners that are well-known CIA front companies. The claim is that the current owners are really the CIA and that the ownership papers for the drug-laden N900SA will almost certainly reveal the same ownership.

Three of the companies which over the years have owned the sister-plane DC9 (N120NE) have collectively ripped off investors to the tune of $300 million dollars.

The current owner, SkyWay Aircraft, was the only tangible asset of SkyWay Communications Holding, a penny stock fraud firm owned by Brent Kovar's father, Glenn Kovar, who ripped $40 million from gullible Skyway investors.

The previous owner was Genesis Aviation, one of several dozen front companies, all of which contain the name “Genesis”, that were/are owned by Adnan Khashoggi. Khashoggi, along with his partner Ramy Al Batrawi, allegedly ripped $130 million from investors through GenesisIntermedia.

The DC9 has also been owned by Finova Capital, revealed in the early 90’s as a CIA front which also owned the C123 military cargo plane used by drug smuggler and CIA pilot Barry Seal.

There's a whole lot of lurid details and no direct link, but the Goss connection appears to be Hopsicker's take on events so far.

( Adnan Khashoggi was a CIA arms trafficker heavily involved in Iran/Contra and joined at the hip to the CIA.)"

as you know, i don't really follow hopsicker, but he seems to have some interesting stuff every now and then. As Damien notes, though, there's nothing in Hopsicker's piece that even relates to Goss- or his sacking from the CIA. Cannon linked to an interview with Hopsicker the other day - but I don't think Hopsicker even mentioned Goss in the interview.

* wsws:

The conflict between the US Congress and the Bush administration over the FBI raid on US Representative William Jefferson’s congressional office has rapidly escalated into a constitutional crisis. The episode highlights the contempt with which the Bush administration views such fundamental issues as the separation of powers and the autonomy of the legislative branch. It also reveals the atmosphere of crisis and tension which pervades the American political system.

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Denunciations of the Justice Department by Republican as well as Democratic legislators reached such a pitch by Thursday that President Bush felt obliged to directly intervene. The previous day, the Republican speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, and the Democratic minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, issued a joint statement denouncing the raid as unconstitutional and demanding that the Justice Department return all of the documents and records removed by the FBI.

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In a remarkable acknowledgment of the sharpness of the confrontation between the executive and legislative branches, Bush said, “Our government has not faced such a dilemma in more than two centuries.” He noted that the “bipartisan leadership of the House of Representatives believes this search violated the constitutional principle of separation of powers and the speech and debate clause of the Constitution.”

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But corruption has long been a feature of American politics, and no previous administration has raided the office of a sitting congressman in the name of conducting a criminal probe. The reasons for the raid on Jefferson’s office have nothing to do with fighting corruption, and everything to do with the drive by the clique around Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to intimidate and silence critics, forestall any investigation into the administration’s own illegal actions, and move toward the establishment of a form of presidential dictatorship.

[]

The rapidity with which the dispute has escalated reflects the intensity of the political crisis that underlies it.

[]

The following morning, however, Hastert gave an interview to WGN radio in Chicago in which he charged that the ABC News report had been deliberately leaked by someone in the Bush administration to intimidate him and retaliate for his denunciation of the FBI raid on Jefferson.

“This is one of the leaks that come out to try to, you know, intimidate people,” he said. He essentially reiterated the allegation later in the day Thursday. When asked if he thought the Justice Department was retaliating against him by leaking the report, Hastert replied, “All I’m saying is, here are the dots. People can connect any dots they want to.” He added, “I thought it was an interesting sequence of events.”

[]

Hastert’s remarks are indicative of the bitter in-fighting and the atmosphere of fear, intrigue and crisis that pervade official Washington.

The tensions between Hastert and the White House reflect divisions, in particular, within the Republican Party...

This is certainly one reason why the same Republicans, such as Hastert, who have supported all of Bush’s anti-democratic measures—from the Patriot Act, to the Homeland Security Department, to massive domestic spying programs—have reacted so sharply to a precedent they fear could be used against them should the Democrats gain control.

Long-time columnist and Republican insider Robert Novak published a column May 18 on Hastert’s relations with the White House that gives some sense of the poisoned state of relations within the Republican Party and the political establishment as a whole. Novak reported that Hastert “engaged in a high decibel rant” in a meeting with Vice President Cheney after he learned that his former House colleague and friend Porter Goss was being forced out as CIA director.

Cheney was so alarmed he immediately scheduled a meeting between Hastert, himself and Bush in the president’s living quarters.

“But Hastert’s discontent goes beyond the CIA,” Novak noted. “The GOP mood on Capitol Hill, particularly the House, is poisonous. With pessimism rising over a contemplated loss of their majority in the 2006 elections, Republican lawmakers blame their parlous condition on Bush’s performance.” Novak went on to say that there was “basically non-communication between Bush and his fellow Republicans in Congress.”

Hastert’s assumption that the ABC News report was an act of intimidation and retaliation by the Bush administration—even were it to prove unfounded—says a great deal about the state of American politics. The titular head of the House of Representatives takes as a given that the top figures in the executive branch, and the leaders of his own party, would not hesitate to employ blackmail, character assassination and the threat of criminal prosecution to silence him and anyone else who stood in their way.

this is interesting:

"Cheney was so alarmed he immediately scheduled a meeting between Hastert, himself and Bush in the president’s living quarters."

cheney as pacemaker peacemaker? party unity guy?

question of the day:

is hastert acting desperately to save his own fat ass, or is it his puppet masters who are nervous and have shoved him out front to scream loudly?

i'm tempted to believe that if i was hastert, all things being equal, i'd just STFU and hope the feds went knocking on someone else's door next time. and the time after that. By getting out front on this issue he seems destined to bring increased attention to his own bribery scandals - and i doubt there's a voter in IL14 who believes he is standing up for any principle. If you were in his sweaty shoes, would you keep your head down?